(Newser)
– With children still out of school since March 2020 and one of the highest coronavirus rates in the world, Cuba announced on Monday a bold new commitment: it has begun administering a COVID vaccine to children, until and all to young children, reports Voice of America. Children ages 2 to 18 receive Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus booster, vaccines that, like Abdala, the adult three-shot version, were developed in Cuba and are not recognized by the World Health Organization. State media report that the nation expects to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the entire population in December, according to the New York News.
The country of 11 million people has had more than 760,000 cases of COVID since the pandemic began, with nearly 6,500 dead, by Johns Hopkins. A recent average of 70 new infections per 100,000 residents has been recorded, which is said to be one of the highest rates in the Western Hemisphere. Meanwhile, officials are desperate to control the disease before the tourist season begins in November and to return children to school after an 18-month absence: reopenings are postponed and most children are unable to learn online due to internet costs. Instead, most have had to resort to learning TV shows.
In clinical trials for adults and some children, Sovereign vaccines have been shown to be 90% effective in protecting against COVID. According to Reuters, the Finlay Institute, a state-owned vaccine manufacturer, has shown that the vaccine is safe for children and that children have shown an even stronger immune response than adults. However, these data have not been peer-reviewed and the WHO and other experts say Cuba needs to be more open with its statistics. “There’s a lot to do, there’s a need and they use established technology,” explains Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor’s College of Medicine’s National School of Tropical Medicine. Time. “But I’m concerned about the level of regulatory oversight.”
In the US Chile has begun vaccinating children 6 years of age and older, while children up to 3 years old are being beaten in China and the United Arab Emirates. As for Cuba’s goal of vaccinating 90% of its population, 56% have received their first vaccine so far, and 37% are now fully vaccinated. (Read more stories from Cuba.)