Cuba Did Not Reject Covax, Prioritizes Its Vaccines Instead

Cuba has managed to complete the immunization of 25 percent of its 11 million people. | Photo: Twitter/ @CarlosO28859673

11 August 2021

by teleSUR/MS

The initiative created by the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to guarantee equal distribution of vaccines. Still, thus far, it has only been able to send shots to 15.7 percent of the world population, while Cuba has managed to complete the immunization of 25 percent of its 11 million people.

Cuban scientists said on Wednesday that the Caribbean did not refuse to participate in the COVAD mechanism although it chose to develop its vaccine instead. This, as the scientists sent a letter to the U.S. president pointing why Biden's comments that Cuba is "a failed state" were false.

'In addition to the fact that the decision was to design our programs with the available economic resources and despite the intensification of United States blockade, Cuba does not belong to Covax either, since it is not among the 92 low and medium-income economies that meet the requirements to receive support from the anticipated market commitment,' the director of biomedical research at the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB), Dr. Gerardo Guillen said.

"Cuba has not refused to receive vaccines from Covax, but it does not rank on the list of 92 developing nations that will receive free immunogens. Cuba created a strategy for the production of vaccine candidates and #vaccines, since the beginning of the pandemic."

The initiative created by the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to guarantee equal distribution of vaccines but thus far it has only been able to send shots to 15.7 percent of the world population, while Cuba has managed to complete the immunization of 25 percent of its 11 million people.

Although the production of medicines in Cuba is currently enduring a crisis induced by the U.S. blockade, the country continues its immunization plan now extended to minors and pregnant women.