Cuba to vaccinate 90% population by December 2021

Havana: Cuba is stepping up its COVID-19 vaccination program as it aims to fully immunize 90% of its people against the COVID-19 by December, an aggressive objective that has yet to be met by even richer countries.

On Thursday, the Health Ministry announced that more than 80% of Cuba's 11.3 million population received at least a first injection of a three-dose vaccination schedule with Cuban vaccines Abdala, Soberana-2 or Soberana. -more.

Nearly 50% were fully vaccinated, he said - well above the global average of 34%, according to the Our World In Data website.

The government said Cuba is on track to become the first country to immunize so many of its population with its own vaccines. He is giving them to children as young as two years old after clinical trials have tested them on children. The United States, by contrast, has still to clear COVID-19 vaccines for anyone under the age of 12.

Currently, Cuba lags behind China, which has fully immunized around 79% of its people with its own vaccines. But Cuban officials are vaccinating at a faster rate per capita.

"We will be the first in the world to reach everyone with our own vaccines," Ileana Morales, director of science and innovation at the Department of Health, said to the state television.

State developer BioCubaFarma told its vaccines reduce severe illness and death by 90%, even though breakthrough infections are possible.

It has yet to release data to support this claim for the scientific community to examine.

The World Health Organization lately originated the process of evaluating the three Cuban vaccines.

"This will be a unique case in the world," said Jose Moya Medina, representative of the Pan American Health Organization in Cuba. "I hope and believe that Cuba will be an example for all the countries of the world, because only a complete vaccination can stop the pandemic and the possible emergence of more dangerous variants."

Cuba missed its first vaccination targets - in part because of US sanctions hindering production, the government told - and suffered one of the world's most critical COVID-19 outbreaks in July and August, stoked by the extremely contagious Delta variant of the virus.

But the government told this month that BioCubaFarma has produced enough vaccines to fully immunize the entire population.

The cash-strapped nation, which flaunts pristine beaches and towns with colonial-era structure, is pitching on success to open its borders by mid-November for peak tourist season fully.

Its vaccination campaign could give it an edge over other countries in the region - one of the most dependent on tourism in the world - which is struggling with an increase in cases in part because of vaccine skepticism. and low adoption.

Cuba is already lifting national restrictions in heavily vaccinated provinces, including Havana, as it attempts to revitalize an economy severely affected by the pandemic, US sanctions and national inefficiencies.

Shortages of food, medicine and just about all consumer goods have caused serious hardship for many, in addition to pandemic lockdowns, layoffs and inflation.

According to official data, cases and deaths per 100,000 population in Havana, where about 80% of adults are vaccinated, are less than 20% of what they were two months ago, and well below the rest from the country.

In 2020, Cuba's response to the pandemic surpassed most countries. This year, however, the Delta variant has swept over the population and, in some provinces, overwhelmed its much-loved health care services. At one point, Cuba had the largest per capita infection rate globally, with daily cases peaking at nearly 10,000 in July and 98 deaths.

The Department of Health reported a total of 11,863 cases and 146 pandemic deaths as of December 31, 2020. Those numbers have skyrocketed this year to 877,428 cases and 7,436 deaths as of Wednesday.