The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
It's also a conjugate vaccine, which have been in use almost 100 years now. So it's a pretty well known technology. Apparently the Cubans have also vaccinated close to two million kids with their vaccine since summer, and it seems to be both safe and effective.
And this is according to Nature. I doubt the sciency stuff doesn't matter, when we have "values" to defend.
Big Pharma and anthrax scare or anti-terror in general
Postal Anthrax Aftermath: Has Biodefense Spending Made Us Safer? | Scientific American - Nov. 1, 2008 |
NIAID director Anthony S. Fauci set an ambitious goal.
From Covid-19 vaccine mix-up between AstraZeneca and Pfizer BioNTech production ...
Emergent BioSolutions anthrax attacks in the United States. ... budget more typical of some big pharmaceutical companies. 'Sapere aude'
Cuba's bet on home-grown COVID vaccines is paying off: Preprint data show that a three-dose combo of Soberana jabs has 92.4% efficacy in clinical trials
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Cuba decided not to wait on the rest of the world to develop vaccines. The United States' 60-year-old economic embargo against the country, which prevents US-made products from being exported there, would make it difficult for Cuba to acquire vaccines and therapies, researchers and officials knew. "It was best, for protecting our population, to be independent," says Vicente Vérez Bencomo, director-general of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines in Havana. So the Finlay Institute and Cuba's other state-run biotechnology centres started developing their own COVID-19 vaccines in the hope that at least one of them would be effective. Their bet seems to be paying off: in a 6 November preprint published on medRxiv1, Vérez Bencomo and his colleagues report that one of the institute's vaccines, Soberana 02, is more than 90% effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 infection when used in combination with a related vaccine. Importantly, the combination seems to be effective against the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has caused surges in hospitalizations and death across the world and now accounts for nearly all COVID-19 cases in Cuba
So the Finlay Institute and Cuba's other state-run biotechnology centres started developing their own COVID-19 vaccines in the hope that at least one of them would be effective. Their bet seems to be paying off: in a 6 November preprint published on medRxiv1, Vérez Bencomo and his colleagues report that one of the institute's vaccines, Soberana 02, is more than 90% effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 infection when used in combination with a related vaccine. Importantly, the combination seems to be effective against the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has caused surges in hospitalizations and death across the world and now accounts for nearly all COVID-19 cases in Cuba
As an aside, WHO is forecasting a shortage of syringes so it's completely pointless to stockpile vaccines that will only sit there and rot. Which would be par for the course since historically ~50% of vaccines sent to the Third World pass their 'Use By' date due to logistic barriers. She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by Frank Schnittger - May 31
by Oui - May 30 11 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 23 3 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 27 3 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 5 22 comments
by Oui - May 13 66 comments
by Carrie - Apr 30 7 comments
by Oui - Jun 12 comments
by Oui - May 3119 comments
by Oui - May 3011 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 273 comments
by Oui - May 2725 comments
by Oui - May 24
by Frank Schnittger - May 233 comments
by Oui - May 1366 comments
by Oui - May 910 comments
by Frank Schnittger - May 522 comments
by Oui - May 449 comments
by Oui - May 312 comments
by Oui - May 29 comments
by Oui - Apr 30273 comments
by Carrie - Apr 307 comments
by Oui - Apr 2644 comments
by Oui - Apr 889 comments
by Oui - Mar 19143 comments