Italian Volunteers Rely on Soberana Plus

Nearly 30 people between ages 19-59 traveled from Italy to Cuba to take part as volunteers in the Soberana Plus Turin clinical study, carried out between institutions in the two countries.

The young Italian researcher Fabrizio Chiodo, a collaborator at the Finlay Institute of Vaccines, in Havana, was in charge of selecting the participants in the joint trial with the Amedeo di Savoia Hospital, in Turin, whose names he didn’t know, because, due to ethics, "They were just numbers," he explained to Prensa Latina.

Age, weight, medical conditions, and allergies, among other parameters of a homogeneous and healthy population group, were taken into account among applicants to join the study. The objective is to verify the efficacy of Soberana Plus vaccine, produced by the Finaly Institute, as reinforcement in people immunized with other vaccines against Covid-19, authorized in Italy.

At the “La Pradera” International Health Center, the volunteers received the dose of Soberana Plus, after providing blood samples to be analyzed by Cuban institutions, in a procedure similar to the one carried out, 28 days later, at the Microbiology and Virology Laboratory of the Amédeo di Savoia.

One of the participants in the study was Matteo Saccani, an economist, in his conversation with Prensa Latina, he stated two main reasons for joining the group.

First of all, he said, it was an honor for me, as for all of us, to put our body at the service of Cuban medical science and give our small contribution, our small support to the development of the vaccine exchange between Cuba and Europe”.

The other reason, he added, "was to take care of my body, it was spectacular for us to have the possibility of getting a vaccine developed by a public health system like the Cuban one."

A vaccine without any economic profit behind it, therefore we are much more confidence and honored at the same time, he specified.

In addition, he stressed that the "clinical trial went extremely well" and was an opportunity to verify, once again, "the professionalism with which scientists work" in Cuba.

Indira Estrada, a Cuban engineer residing in Italy, pointed out that she joined the clinical trial "as a modest contribution to confronting Covid-19" and, even more so, because it’s one of the vaccines that Cuban scientists and health system "put at our disposal against this disease".

Similarly, for the political scientist Mattia Baldini, the main reason for his presence in the investigation was, on the one hand, political, because he considers the Cuban concept of universal and free health, detached from private financial interests, as "a very good example of how a better world could be?

Baldini's second reason was "more personal, health, because Soberana Plus has already had very good results in Cuba and, as I said, I totally trust Cuban health."

When that opportunity came my way “I said to myself, why not, in addition to supporting a political idea with which I totally agree”, also “I’m going to get a vaccine that will protect me even more than the ones I’ve already gotten”, he remembered.

According to Baldini, it was a very nice experience and, above all, he remembers the care provided by the doctors from the Finlay Institute and La Pradera, "who woke us up very early every morning and asked us how we were, if we had any sign with the vaccine.”

That level of detail, he said, has a lot to do with the idea that a person may have about the Cuban health system because, just comparing, back in Europe you get the vaccine and you don't know who produced it.

However, in Cuba, we were able to speak with the people who actually manufactured the vaccine, who developed the Soberana project, and all of this gives you an idea of ​​how close you are to the scientific community, so to speak, a lot more than what you’re used to in Europe, he said.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff