The Venezuelan National Academy of Medicine on Wednesday reiterated its warning that drugs being developed in Cuba “are not real vaccines” against covid-19, “but experimental products,” despite President Nicolás Maduro’s announcement. that one of them will occur in the country.
“We have already warned that Cuban products are not real vaccines, but experimental products whose composition, safety, and effectiveness are not known,” says a statement from the Academy.
Last Sunday, Maduro announced that Venezuela would produce 2 million Abdullah a month, one of the Cuban vaccine projects against covid-19, after reiterating that it had signed an agreement with the Caribbean island to manufacture the drugs.
“We have signed an agreement to produce in our laboratories (…) 2 million vaccines per month of the Abdullah vaccine, already there for the month of August, September, approximately,” said the governor.
He also assured that the country will sign agreements with China, Russia and “other countries” to produce vaccines against covid-19.
In this regard, the Academy stressed that “there is an urgent need to have a national vaccination plan against covid-19, which serves as a fundamental support for all initiatives that are necessary in order to ensure immunization. of an estimated 15 million Venezuelans “.
So far, Venezuela has acquired 250,000 doses of the Russian vaccine Sputnik-V and 500,000 Chinese Sinopharm, according to information provided by the government which has barely provided data in this regard, so it is unknown how many of them have been inoculated. nor to whom.
The units received so far, all in double doses, only arrive to vaccinate 1.3% of the population, close to 30 million inhabitants, although, according to the Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, the immunization is fast form, which does not square with the actual figures.
On the other hand, Maduro announced on Sunday that the executive has managed to release funds, which the US had “kidnapped” due to international sanctions, enough to acquire 11,374,400 vaccines from the COVAX mechanism, although the government rejects the AstraZeneca formula, which the system initially had assigned to Venezuela.
For the Academy, “this represents a step in the right direction,” but they believe that “it is not enough,” so in his view, “the national claim” for vaccines “must continue until every Venezuelan be vaccinated “.
They also announced that the announcement was made “without the knowledge of the National Technical Board for access to COVAX,” composed of the Ministry of Health, opponents, representatives of the National Academy of Medicine and societies scientific, with the support of the Pan American Health Organization and Unicef.
In this regard, they also ask to correct the doubts generated by this announcement, the first of which is the lack of information “about what vaccine will be purchased, or when it would be arriving in Venezuela.”