Claudia Bernal Estrada, engineer at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba (CIGB), tells us why miracle of Cuban vaccines. Invited by the State Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, this young Cuban who during the pandemic worked as a volunteer with those positive for COVID-19, has toured Spain explaining the excellence of Cuban biotechnology and the importance that this sector has for the health of people. Cubans and citizens of other countries who cannot buy the products of the oligopoly of rich countries. Likewise, she tells us the damage that the blockade is doing to the development of a deeply humanitarian task. Claudia works in the imports department of the CIGB, so she experiences the blockade in her daily work.
“It is the political will, with Fidel from the beginning, that has allowed us to develop this sector that is so important for health in Cuba”
MANUEL GONZÁLEZ: How is it possible that Cuba, a socialist country that does not belong to the club of the rich, has developed vaccines against COVID-19, when rich and capitalist countries have not achieved it?
CLAUDIA BERNAL: Because of how expensive it is, it was thought that it was limited to developed, first-world countries. But it is the political will, since the beginning with Fidel, that has allowed this sector to be promoted with the importance it has for the health of the Cuban people and for the country’s economy. We have always been aware of the risks generated by the limitations imposed on us by the blockade. Since the revolution triumphed there were two fundamental projects: education and health. Literacy was promoted and we went from being a country of illiterates to being a country of science and thought. Our main resource has always been the human being and all the preparation for its improvement has been directed to them. We have very good scientists, very prepared, and that is why we were able to respond during the COVID-19 stage because we already had a know how (know-how) for many years and we had a developed industry that allowed us to develop our own vaccines.
“We have highly trained scientists, many years of know-how and a developed industry that allowed us to create our own vaccines”
MG: So our surprise is actually more of ignorance?
C.B.: When COVID-19 arrived, Cuba had already been developing vaccines for years. The Cuban health system and the medication system is based on its own vaccines. We do the vaccines that are given to our newborn children in Cuba. Many of our scientists have also been training in other countries and then have returned and implemented that knowledge by promoting and leading new projects. Therefore, when the pandemic arrived, we already had technology and platforms and on that basis we looked for as many variants as possible. They worked with many vaccine candidates, that is, there was a response capacity.
MG: At this moment, Cuba exports medicines to forty countries.
C.B.: We have always made our products available to all those who evaluate and accept them, and this is how the Abdala vaccine has reached Vietnam, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Mexico. That is, those countries that recognized that the vaccine was safe, effective and potent. And so it goes with the rest of the medications. We have the ability to produce them, even despite limitations.
“The restrictions under Biden remain the same or worse than under Trump”
MG: How has the toughened blockade affected Donald Trump’s classification of Cuba as a state collaborating with terrorism?
C.B.: The restrictions under Biden remain the same or worse than those imposed by Trump. During the COVID-19 stage, the persecution was greater because, imagine that it suddenly became known that Cuba was going to develop its own vaccines… Because, who were the ones who made vaccines? Large transnational companies, large countries with great economic powers. They were not going to let Cuba want to enter that competition. They know that we have a good and powerful technology industry but it is not publicly recognized.
M.G.: The New York Times has published that there is interest from the US biotechnology industry in Cuban research.
C.B.: Yes of course. There is even a product for lung cancer that is being studied at the United States Medical Center. There are hospitals in the United States that are interested and exchanges are beginning; What happens is that many obstacles appear along the way precisely so that it is not a Cuban product that is put on the market. This is a long-distance race. Entrepreneurs are interested but face the limitations of the blockade.
MG: Even though these are health-related, humanitarian issues?
C.B.: Regrettable. Many times health ceases to be of interest and political, market, money, and transnational interests begin to take precedence, which are not the ones that should take precedence.
MG: I heard that you made the COVID-19 vaccine because you knew you couldn’t buy it.
C.B.: Not only because we had no options, but because we trusted our health system a lot and because we had the capacity to do so. We knew that the COVID-19 industry was going to be monopolized by large transnational companies and Cuba fortunately had the capabilities to develop its own vaccines. We could and we proved it. And not just one vaccine but several.
MG: Now, in order to limit its export, they try to discredit it.
C.B.: Yes. That media campaign has always existed, every time Cuba achieves some achievement. They try to discredit the sector, our scientists, discredit our facilities, our factories… It is a campaign that does not arise now. It has existed. But there are the results of the clinical trials of the vaccine and other medications such as Heberprot for diabetic foot ulcers.
MG: This drug could be very useful in the United States, where several thousand people suffer amputations due to diabetes.
C.B.: The extraterritorial aspect of the blockade is that it not only affects our population, but also prevents other populations in other countries from accessing these products. Due to political or other interests, they do not allow us to position our products in their markets.
MG: Does this medicine exist in Spain?
C.B.: It is not sold in Europe because the European regulatory entity does not authorize it. There are other medications that are used for these treatments, what happens is that the level of healing that is achieved with Heberprot is not achieved by other products.
MG: Since you work in the import department at the CIGT, will you experience the blockade firsthand?
C.B.: Blocking is my daily life. I work buying supplies, reagents, technology for research, development and production. The work in the import direction is colliding day by day with the blockade. To be able to purchase any input you encounter banking limitations, supplier limitations, and manufacturer limitations. That is the day to day of our work.
CUBA, AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SPANISH SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY
M.G.
In the talk that preceded the interview, at Marx Madera de Orcasitas, Claudia Bernal explained how Fidel Castro, as soon as he heard about the new field of research, invited the American oncologist Randolph Lee Clark to Cuba. As a result of this visit, two Cuban doctors went to stay at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. Initially, the invitation was for a doctor but Fidel sent two, a man and a woman. They then sent a team to Sweden to learn how to synthesize interferon. Four investigators were going to go, but there were eight. Claudia tells these anecdotes to illustrate the enormous interest that the Cuban Government has placed in this matter since its inception, more than forty years ago. Today, Biocubafarma is an industrial conglomerate with more than 20,000 workers belonging to 46 companies that research, produce and market vaccines against COVID-19 or hepatitis B, drugs against cancer, to cure diabetic foot ulcers, or products for animal health such as the Porvac vaccine against swine fever, in addition to obtaining transgenics for food improvement.
As in its beginnings, Cuba is committed to the exchange of knowledge and collaboration with other countries. Right now, the CIGB maintains a cooperation agreement with Changheber, a Chinese company that is innovative in cancer treatments. In the United States, even though Trump’s tightening of the blockade remains in force, the New York Medical Center is collaborating in the development of a drug against lung cancer. Spanish institutions and companies in the sector would have a lot to gain by reaching collaboration agreements with Cuban genetic engineering and biotechnology companies. Few countries can have more reasons than Spain for this collaboration. The Finlay Vaccine Institute of Cuba is named after a distinguished doctor and researcher who was born Spanish and died Cuban. Carlos Juan Finlay y Barrés discovered the origin of the transmission of yellow fever. Incomprehensibly, he did not receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine despite having been nominated seven times.
WHO IS THE TERRORIST?
M.G.
The Government of Donald Trump described Cuba as a state collaborating with terrorism without any evidence. No evidence, because there isn’t any. He did so because this declaration allows him to further tighten the conditions of the blockade. During the pandemic we have seen how Cuba was prevented from purchasing masks or syringes in the normal market, which means prices have multiplied. In the 1960s, with the Cold War in full swing, the United States accepted Russia’s proposal to the WHO to end smallpox, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, bloc interests have prevailed over health, discrediting foreign vaccines and preventing their sale. Cuba is suffering a brutal campaign to try to get it onto the vaccine and health market. Everything indicates that, in the new cold war with which the United States intends to entrench its decadent hegemony, humanitarian principles have no place. One of the consequences is that some banks bow to US demands and do not operate with Cuba, such as Caixabank. The reason for this criminal blockade is very simple: the United States is terrified of the development that Cubans can achieve under normal conditions.
That the United States accuses Cuba of terrorism has its merits. The United States has designed dozens of terrorist operations around the world and especially against Cuba. Not long ago we learned, through official documents, that the CIA had studied the convenience of shooting down a plane with American passengers to accuse Cuba. Fortunately that operation was not carried out. Yes, in 1976, the downing of Cubana de Aviación flight 455 that covered the Barbados-Havana route was carried out. Two bombs killed all 73 people on board. The mastermind of the operation was Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban dissident who worked for the CIA before the attack and who was protected by the United States after the massacre.
The classification of Cuba as a terrorist country remains in force with the Biden Government, as have three other deeply regressive measures adopted by Trump: the increase in NATO militarism with the rate of 2% of GDP, the Jerusalem declaration as the capital of Israel and the handover of the Sahara to Morocco, all of them flagrantly contravening UN resolutions.
2024-02-11 00:59:41
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