The country’s leadership and the health authorities agreed on the convenience of applying the first booster dose with the Cuban anti-COVID-19 vaccines, to adolescents and young people between the ages of 12 and 18 who have completed six months of the complete scheme of the primary vaccination.
The proposal was adopted at this week’s meeting between the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, with scientists and experts who participate in science activities and technological innovation to confront the coronavirus.
The campaign will cover about 848,000 individuals of these ages. Until now the booster dose was applicable to people 19 years of age and older. The meeting also evaluated another group of actions as part of the vaccination strategy.
One of them was the proposal for new clinical trials, this time in pediatric ages (infants), which are in the evaluation stage by the Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (Cecmed).
Dr. Ileana Morales Suárez, director of Science and Technological Innovation of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), explained that One trial will be the Pequeñuelo Study, Phase I/II, promoted by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) with the Abdala vaccine, and will be carried out in Havana.
The other trial proposed to Cecmed is the Soberana Futuro Study, Phase I/II, whose promoter center is the Finlay Vaccine Institute. It will take place in Havana and Cienfuegos.
In the meeting, in which the Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh and the head of the MINSAP, José Angel Portal Miranda, also participated, it was agreed to carry out an intervention with the age group between one year and one year, 11 months and 29 days.
Morales Suárez pointed out that he will take into account previous safety and immunogenicity studies carried out in pediatric ages. He explained that it will be carried out progressively and in two stages:
First stage: Introduction of vaccination through a pharmacovigilance study in girls and boys between one year and one year, 11 months and 29 days. The trial will be carried out in Camagüey, with the Abdala vaccine, and in Cienfuegos, with the Soberanas.
Second stage: Once the first stage is advanced, a partial safety report will be prepared and sent to the Regulatory Authority, which will evaluate its results and those obtained in previous studies. If favorable, it will extend the Emergency Use Authorization to this age group. Once approved, the vaccines will be applied regionally.
It was also proposed reinforce with the vaccines approved for this, with a second booster dose, to high-risk groups (it will be executed after six months of the first booster). This includes people over 60 years of age and immunocompromised people (cancer patients, chronic kidney diseases, transplant recipients, people with immunodeficiencies, among others).
With the purpose of developing other studies that will allow defining new needs for booster doses, the period of application of these and the conditions in which they must be developed, it was also proposed a study on the duration of the immune response in BioCubaFarma workers, and another on the duration of the immune response in Health workers, with primary vaccination and booster dose, from the IPK and other institutions.
Every day more sovereign
At this week’s meeting, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister with scientists and experts also presented a summary of the impact of the study on the duration and quality of the immune response in children with Sovereign vaccines. The evaluation was carried out by the doctor of Sciences Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general director of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines and leader of that program.
In a comparative analysis of the behavior of the pandemic and the response of anti-COVID-19 vaccines in four countries with higher immunization coverage than Cuba, and in ours, the scientist explained that, thanks to the fact that we were the first nation to protect its pediatric population between two and 18 years of age, the quality of Cuban vaccines, and how we carry out our immunization campaign, our results in protecting the child and general population have been very relevant.
Among other conclusions, he pointed out that in Cuba:
- The reduction in the incidence rate in the vaccinated population from two to 18 years of age was 79.1%. According to estimates, 69,869 cases were prevented in these age groups for this reason.
- Due to our general vaccination campaign and in the pediatric population from two to 18 years of age, in the Omicron period (from the end of December 2021 to date), the ratio of the incidence rate in girls and boys under two years, despite not yet being vaccinated, it allowed, according to estimates, to prevent 51,022 of these minors from getting sick.
No one in the world, except Cuba (which carried out a general immunization campaign for these groups between September 15 and November 15), had begun to vaccinate the pediatric population before the Omicron wave, summarized Vérez Bencomo. He also summed it up like this:
- The Cuban vaccines worked.
- The campaign in the pediatric population (and the rest) was a success.
- Protection against the Omicron variant worked.
The General Director of the IFV also presented an analysis on the duration of the antibody response at six-seven months after pediatric vaccination with Soberana, and it was shown that this population shows a much higher positive response than the adult population.
At the meeting, Doctor of Science Dagmar García Rivera, Director of Research at the IFV, thanked the children and adolescents who have participated in the trials with Cuban vaccines, who, despite undergoing what could be difficult, painful trials, they bravely assumed their role and have made their contribution to save lives, to save the country.
Weekly forecasts
At this Tuesday’s meeting of scientists and experts with the First Secretary of the Central Committee, the usual update of the COVID-19 forecast models was presented by Doctor of Science Raúl Guinovart Díaz, dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing of the University of Havana. After reviewing the models they use for their analyses, he concluded that:
In the past week, the most complex situation occurred in the province of Mayabeque; however, the other western ones (Pinar del Río, Artemisa and Havana) had an increase in the incidence of cases. The four central-western provinces (Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus) have seen substantial improvement. And in the eastern region, only Camagüey increased the incidence in this period.
For all the provinces, the maintenance of their current situation is forecast, with a tendency to control and a decrease in cases. Predictions for the next ten days point to a decrease in confirmed cases.
At the end of this week, a downward trend in confirmed and hospitalized cases is expected; however, the established preventive actions must be maintained and the perception of risk must not be lowered.
This Tuesday the usual meeting of the Government’s temporary working group for the prevention and control of COVID-19 was also held, which through videoconference with political and government authorities from the 15 provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, was headed by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
Members of the Political Bureau also participated, Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power; Manuel Marrero Cruz, Prime Minister, and Salvador Valdés Mesa, Vice President of the Republic. In addition, the Vice Prime Ministers Inés María Chapman Waugh and Alejandro Gil Fernández attended, as well as ministers, ministers and other authorities.
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