The digital newspaper VnExpress highlighted last Saturday that “massive vaccination coverage in Cuba and the early plan to inoculate its children were essential to defeat omicron on the island.”
In an article entitled “Strategies to help Cuba defeat omicron”, the Vietnamese journal said that the vaccination strategy against Covid-19, with a particular focus on young children, was the key measure of the Cuban government to face the new SARS-CoV-2 variant.
“In other countries, children are the most susceptible to the omicron variant. However, that is not happening on the island. Cuba developed its own vaccine against Covid-19, becoming the first country in the world to massively vaccinate children from the age of 2, from September 2021”, the publication added.
According to official reports, 1.8 million Cuban children and adolescents aged 2 to 18 (over 96% of this demographic segment) received the Cuban vaccines without serious side effects.
In the early days of the pandemic, Cuba launched a strategy based on developing its own covid vaccines. By mid-2021, the island became the smallest country in the world to successfully develop and produce home-grown Covid vaccines and started a mass vaccination program.
The Cuban biotechnology industry has come up with three vaccines (Soberana 02, Soberana Plus and Abdala) over 90% effective and two vaccine candidates (Soberana 01 and Mambisa, the last one is among the world’s five nasal anti-Covid-19 vaccine candidates).
As of February 28th, 2022, almost 90% of the nation is fully immunized with a three-dose scheme, and 5.9 million (population: 11.2 million ) got booster shots.
VnExpress, the top visited online newspaper in Vietnam, with more than 10 billion visits a year, mentioned “prioritizing childhood vaccination; promoting a mass vaccination campaign, on a large scale; quickly boost your entire population, including people infected with the new coronavirus” as “factors that have made Cuba successful in repelling ómicron.”
According to statistics from Our World in Data, Cuba ranks among the top countries in percentage of population vaccinated, fully vaccinated and those with an additional dose.