Cuba gives nod to first COVID vaccine Abdala, efficacy at 92%

Latin America’s Cuba on Friday approved the Abdala vaccine for COVID-19, the country’s first jab to be approved for nationwide use since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. The newly approved jab is likely to provide hope and relief to the South American country as the region struggles with a vaccine drought. 

According to the announcements delivered by the COVID-19 vaccine producing company last month, the Abdala vaccine is 92% effective at providing safety from the deadly and highly infectious virus. However, the vaccine needs to be administered thrice before it can provide the desired effect. 

 BioCubaFarma laboratory, the pharmaceutical organisation producing the vaccine, said that Abdala “shows the efficacy of 92.28% in its three-dose scheme”, according to reports from AFP.

Cuba had a total of five COVID-19 vaccines in the pipeline in order to tackle the virus and started using the jabs on its population of Abdala and Soberana 2 without receiving proper approval from the country’s CECMED health regulator. 

Cuba has already vaccinated a large chunk of its population with at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, of which the tally stands out to be 6.8 million while the fully vaccinated population count is 1.6 million. Cuba’s total population is 11.2 million, according to reports from AFP.

The country has not bought or sought vaccines from elsewhere, and aims to immunize its population before the end of the year, reported AFP.

The World Health Organization has set a minimum standard rate of efficacy at 50%  for any COVID-19 vaccine before it can be laid out for a global rollout. However, no such criteria needs to be fulfilled for a national inoculation drive. 

So far in the pandemic, Cuba has recorded more than 224,000 infections of COVID-19 in the country and has also tallied approximately 1,450 deaths related to the disease, according to reports from AFP.