The Cuban strategy to confront the Covid-19 already shows tangible results, since as it advances towards the four months of its implementation, and with an average scenario in the number of positive cases, the contagions decrease and are now only located mostly in the capital.
Based on its own research-development (R&D) model, which integrates the management of science, medical and epidemiological care, according to its developers, the Cuban methodology for the disease focuses on the preventive and therapeutic aspects.
To achieve this, the government, health authorities and the scientific community began to work since its appearance in China and with greater emphasis upon reaching Cuba, a machinery that engages all branches of knowledge, from the natural, biological and exact sciences, to the social sciences without Lack of Information Technology and Communications.
More than 90 percent of the recovered patients, a case fatality of 3.7 percent, are among the figures recorded, in addition to case reports ranging from less than 10 several weeks ago.
In the opinion of the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, the active research and the use of products from the national biopharmaceutical industry led to a positive impact on the evolution of the disease in Cuba. That is the key.
From the initial moments, on March 11 with the first positive cases, various institutions were working to prevent its spread, and self-investigations, through mobile applications, and active investigations by Primary Health Care carried out by advanced years medical students.
But biotechnology, with its arsenal of products, reached patients and despite constituting a new disease, with international experience and its own, a treatment protocol was being shaped that is now in its fifth version.
According to the levels of complexity of the services, the care ladder is defined, with therapies designed in the community, as well as surveillance centers for travelers, suspects, confirmed persons, and those who transit to serious and critical stages.
The biotechnology industry is present at each level, with four products that have already become indispensable: Biomodulina T, Interferón alfa2B, Jusvinza (CIGB258) and Itolizumab.
The first two as regulators of the immune response and the last ones used in the treatment of other diseases and redirected to patients with Covid-19, despite presenting different mechanisms of action, but with a common effect that contributes to stopping the proinflammatory process that It occurs especially in critically ill and critically ill patients.
With a long-term view, after almost four months have passed, and more than two thousand recovered patients, various institutions are now studying the SARS-Cov-2 virus in depth, for a better clinical-epidemiological evaluation.
The Pedro Kourí Institute (IPK), leader in tropical disease research, and pioneer in the care of the first positive cases, achieved the genome sequence of the new coronavirus that circulates in Cuba, vital to know its behavior.
This procedure is necessary to closely follow its evolution, to know how it manifests itself in different patients, places, in the same patient, in asymptomatic patients, severe and to look for mutations, explained Cuban scientist Guadalupe Guzmán.
Investigations on the persistence of a positive PCR (C-reactive protein test) between 20 and 31 days after the symptoms appear, as well as another on the causes that led to the severity of a patient taking into account factors such as age and morbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure or the presence of more than two of them, the institution carries out.
Another entity focused on studies of the disease in Cuba is the Center for Medical Genetics, which focuses its research on exploring the genetic predisposition of patients to reach severe stages, as well as checking whether presenting A + blood group can also lead at that stage, among the most significant.
With the passage of time, and in the search for cases, the route to follow in its control also focuses on opening the range of studies.
More PCR tests, and the use of the UMELISA SARS-CoV-2 IgG diagnostics, a SUMA technology reagent (Ultra Micro Analytical System) intended to detect antibodies generated by the new coronavirus, are applied in different population groups. Both tests, according to official figures, have reached 22.4 per thousand inhabitants.
Hence, the Immunoassay Center, attached to the BioCubaFarma business group, and developer of the diagnostician, looks for more alternatives to increase the monitoring of possible infected people.
They are already working on three other tests to strengthen the diagnostic system. The first of these will be an ELISA (immunoenzymatic techniques) for the detection of total antibodies, to identify individuals who have been exposed to the virus.
The second is an ELISA for the detection of IgM antibodies that will allow the detection of people with a recent infection with the new coronavirus, and the third is designed to detect the SARS-COV-2 antigen.
Constant monitoring of prevention and the application of biotechnology products for different treatments at various levels of care have kept the virus in Cuba at bay, a fruitful combination.
By: Ana Laura Arbesú (Prensa Latina)