Cuba: COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Will Include Other Five Serums

President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez (L) and the Finlay Institute of Vaccines (R) Vicente Verez, Havana, Cuba. Oct. 3, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @FinlayInstituto

Published 5 October 2020

Cuban experts preclude concluding the clinical trial phases in January of 2021 and start large vaccinations in the first semester of the year.

 

During a visit of Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez to the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), it was announced that the first-phase clinical trials of the Cuban COVID-19 vaccine have shown that "Soberana 1" formulation hardly generates slight effects.

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"In phase 1 of the clinical trial, 40 volunteers felt minimal adverse effects such as a slight pain in the arm... It is an important conquest for all the formulations we are preparing," the IFV director Vicente Verez said.

IFV announced the inclusion in clinical trials of another five formulations of Soberana 1, to assess the immunological response to the different serums during an initial phase. Those that show more effectivity will advance to a human testing phase.

The new vaccine formulations use a biotechnologically processed protein instead of the genetic material of the virus. 

During the work meeting, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) Director Eulogio Pimentel presented a project of another COVID-19 vaccine, which would be applied both nasally and intramuscularly.

"We are convinced that both, or at least one formulation of each, is going to be successful," Pimentel said and stressed CIGB and FIV are collaborating to obtain the serum. 

Cuban experts preclude concluding the clinical trial phases in January of 2021 and start large vaccinations in the first semester of the year.