Cuban Foreign Minister questions access to anti-Covid-19 vaccines

Havana, January 18 (RHC)-- The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, questioned the access to the available anti-Covid-19 vaccines, which according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) benefits the most developed nations.

On Twitter, Rodriguez called attention to the fact that only ten countries have bought  95 percent of the pandemic vaccines produced. This figure casts doubt on the real possibilities of immunization for the developing world.

"How could equitable access to immunization be guaranteed in the nations of the South," the island's top diplomat asked, as well as how vaccination could be assured for poor and vulnerable families and how long it would take to implement it.

The director-general of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Monday that the planet is on the verge of a "catastrophic moral failure" due to the unequal distribution of these drugs.

He said that while more than 39 million doses of vaccines have been given in at least 49 high-income nations, only 25 million doses were given in one low-income nation.

The official said it is right for governments to prioritize vaccination of their health workers and vulnerable groups. Still, he stressed the unfairness of young, healthy adults in wealthy nations being immunized before doctors and older people in developing countries.

In this scenario, Cuba and Venezuela are making progress in creating the Vaccine Bank for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Treaty, an initiative that seeks to guarantee the vaccination of the peoples of the integration mechanism.

The island could start next March the emergency use of some of its four vaccine candidates against Covid-19, as confirmed to the TV station Russia Today by the president of the Business Group of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries (BioCubaFarma), Eduardo Martinez.

Phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine that goes on later could start in March. Based on the results, and knowing the results of other candidates at an international level, Cuba could aspire to an emergency use to start making massive vaccinations to the people of greater risk', Martinez affirmed.