Abdala Vaccine Candidate

By Roberto Morejón

Cuba and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have had opportunities in 2021 to demonstrate their strong friendly ties, with their mutual assistance in specific situations.

With a population of 111,000 inhabitants, St. Vincent and the Grenadines became the first state of CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, to approve and use one of the three Cuban vaccines against COVID-19.

Abdala, with an efficacy of 92.28 percent in the prevention of symptomatic disease and 90 percent effectiveness in severe patients, together with Soberana-02 and Soberana Plus, contributed to the immunization of more than 85 percent of the Cuban population. 

The use in the two to 11 year-old age group since last October also highlighted the value of Abdala, with which Cuba became the first country to protect this age group from SARS-Cov-2.

With this injectable in hand and those from other sources, the health authorities of San Vicente will increase the vaccination process, when 23 percent of the population has completed it.

With this contribution of biologicals, the assistance bridges between Cuba and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are reaffirmed.

In October, the Cubans received a donation of foodstuffs from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in view of the severe difficulties they are going through, as they are exposed to the rigors of the intensified U.S. blockade and the pandemic, with an impact on the public coffers.

This same year, St. Vincent and the Grenadines received a humanitarian shipment sent by Havana to support the efforts to mitigate the traces of the eruption of the La Soufriere volcano.

A Cuban medical brigade, reinforced in response to the emergency, attended to the victims at a time when, with limited local resources, it was difficult to counteract the natural catastrophe.

The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonzalves, thanked Cuba for its gesture.  The statesman strongly demanded this year at the UN General Assembly the end of the U.S. siege on Cuba.

Cuba and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, with official diplomatic relations since May 1992, will write in 2021 a page of transcendental cooperation, as a sign that their peoples and authorities are working, together with other Caribbean nations, for fraternity in the region.