Pretoria, March 18, 2020.- Although at the moment there is no specific preventive vaccine or treatment in the world for the new SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19 disease, the Cuban pharmaceutical industry guarantees the production of drugs that have been tested and are highly effective, such as the case of Recombinant Human Interferon Alpha 2B, in addition to another group of medications, which are part of the protocol to care for patients with this disease and any complications that may arise.
The experience of coping with this pandemic in China provides a guide for the detection and treatment of the virus. Said guide recommends Interferon as the first medicine, of which Cuba has all the capabilities to supply the health system, both on the Island and internationally.
Cuba has been supplying this medicine, and it is currently used in vulnerable and health care personnel as a preventive measure, as well as in patients with Covid-19 in the form of nebulization, as it is a quick route to reach the lungs and act on the early stages of infection.
In previous outbreaks of the coronavirus, SARS in 2002 and MERS in 2012, interferons were also being used for the care and treatment of infected people. Studies show that these viruses decrease the production of interferon in the body, hence the effectiveness of the drug in the treatment of Covid-19.
Eulogio Pimentel Vázquez, general director of the Cuban Center for Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), specified that they have a total of Interferon completed to attend to all the estimated cases that could occur in Cuba in a period of three to six months. In addition, he stressed, "we have in inventory of the product in process a total that would be equivalent, practically, to the amount necessary to treat the total of all the infected that occurred in China."
Pimentel assured that the CIGB has the capacity not only to respond to the possible growth in demand in Cuba, but also to satisfy the numerous requests that they have received so far from other nations, both for information and for the acquisition of the product.
Although Recombinant Human Interferon Alpha 2B has been, in recent days, headline news in various international media, for its effectiveness in treating patients infected with the new coronavirus, this is not the only drug with which Cuba account to face this global pandemic.
There are 21 other products that are part of the Health protocol in Cuba, among them antivirals, antirhythmics and antibiotics, for the treatment of complications of the patients, who become infected with Covid-19, and the Cuban national industry ensures their production.