Cuba to supply its home-grown COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam

Cuba will supply huge amounts of its home-grown Covid-19 vaccine, Abdala, to Vietnam and will also transfer production technology to the Southeast Asian country by the end of the year, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.

After controlling the spread of coronavirus for the most part, currently, Vietnam is struggling to manage its most serious outbreak to date, with a continuous increase in infections and deaths that increased pressure on authorities to accelerate vaccinations.

"Cuba is sending a large number of Covid doses to Vietnam to support the technology transfer by the end of this year," the health ministry stated in a declaration, without defining the number of doses. Cuba said its three-shot Abdala vaccine is 92.28% effective against the coronavirus in last-stage clinical trials in June.

Vietnam has so far signed dealers for recombinant DNA protein and mRNA vaccine technology transfer and is also in talks with US firm Pfizer about establishing a vaccine manufactory in the country.

The Southeast Asian nation has secured more than 23 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines and suspects to get at least 50 million doses in the fourth quarter, the health ministry declared.

Vietnam's inoculation program, which began in March, has only vaccinated at an early stage with only 1.9% of the country's 98 million people - one of the lowest rates in the region.

The Cuban vaccine Abdala is manufactured by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. It is a protein subunit vaccine comprising COVID-derived proteins that trigger an immune response.