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With five vaccine candidates, Cuba is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean developing its own COVID-19 vaccines: Soberana 01, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus, from the Finlay Vaccine Institute, as well as Abdala and Mambisa, from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

In August 2020, the country became the first in the region and the 30th in the world to announce a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, according to www.cubadebate.cu.

Soberana 01, Soberana 02, Soberana Plus and Abdala are injectable vaccines, administered intramuscularly into the deltoid muscle, while Mambisa is administered through the nose.

Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they do not require deep freezing, which facilitates storage and transport, and they are cheaper and more viable options for countries with fewer resources.

Two of them, Soberana 02 and Abdala, are beginning the third phase of clinical trials this March, the aforementioned source pointed out.

Soberana 02 requires the administration of three doses at two-week intervals, and Abdala, two doses three weeks apart; both show a high immune response against the coronavirus and have few and mild adverse effects, such as slight pain around the injection site.

Soberana Plus is the most recent formulation, designed for patients convalescing from COVID-19.

Regarding Abdala, Dr. Marta Ayala, director of the CIGB, pointed out that, if its favorable progress continues, the country could register it in international bodies and begin immunization as of next August.

The Cuban National Center for Biopreparations (BIOCEN) has produced on a large scale the Soberana 02 vaccine candidate, the most advanced in the country against COVID-19, to implement phase III of clinical trials.

The deputy director of Industrial Operations of the Finlay Vaccine Institute, Roselyn Martínez, said that the productive scaling represents another milestone: from the technological point of view, any transfer constitutes a challenge, but in the case of Soberana 02 the challenge is greater due to the health emergency.

In Soberana 02’s phase III of clinical trials, 44,010 Havanans, between 19 and 80 years old, from eight municipalities will be vaccinated, Radio Reloj reported.

Cuba hopes to produce 100 million doses of Soberana 02 this year to vaccinate its entire population of 11 million people and export to other countries by the end of the year.

The director of the Finlay Institute, Vicente Vérez, explained that Soberana 01 constitutes a possible ideal booster for immunity in patients convalescing from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and also for those vaccinated with biotechnological products.

For its part, Mambisa, the only one of the four Cuban vaccine candidates to be administered through the nose, is also well tolerated and showed safety in people who received it during phase I of its clinical trial, Dr. Ayala said.

Cuba is about to realize an extraordinary achievement in the global race for COVID-19 vaccines, and Cuban biotechnology is giving much hope to the underdeveloped countries of the southern hemisphere, the Vietnamese newspaper Tuoi Tre reflected, according to misiones.cubaminrex.cu. If Soberana 02 is safe and effective, this achievement will make Cuba the first Latin American country to be able to vaccinate its population against this disease with a national vaccine, the article said.

The COVID-19 vaccines that Cuba is developing may be part of the Revolving Fund of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), announced the representative of that entity on the island, José Moya, who pointed out that thus the nations of the region have the possibility of accessing these products “in a timely manner and with reasonable prices.”

“Once they pass the clinical stages, presumably the most advanced candidate, Soberana 02, will enter into that mechanism that for four decades has allowed managing antigens and supplies for the countries of the Americas,” Moya explained, quoted by Prensa Latina.

More than 50 contingents of Cuban doctors and health professionals have gome to 40 countries to fight against COVID-19, according to Cubadebate, and for these efforts, thousands of organizations and people around the world have joined the campaign asking for the Nobel Peace Prize for the Cuban Henry Reeve Medical Brigade.