Cuba Is Vaccinating Children As Young As 2 Years Old, First Country In The World To Do So

Cuba has started to inoculate all children aged above 2, using home-grown Covid-19 vaccines Abdala and Soberana, which don’t have the WHO approval yet

A man takes a photo of her 3-year-old daughter who was inoculated with Cuban Covid vaccine Soberana Plus on August 24, 2021 in Havana as part of the vaccine study in children and adolescents | Photo: AFP

New Delhi: Cuba has started to inoculate children as young as two years old, with Covid-19 vaccines developed by the country, the local government announced Monday. 

These vaccines — Abdala and Soberana — don’t have the recognition from the World Health Organization yet, AFP reported. Clinical trials were done on minors before the country approved its use. 

Cuba is the first country in the world to vaccinate children from the age of two. The country of 11.2 million people aims to vaccinate all children before reopening schools, which have been mostly closed since March 2020, the report said.

There is no internet in most Cuban homes. Education is being imparted through television programmes in the country. The government has announced that schools would gradually reopen in October and November this year, but only after all children have been inoculated.

Cuban Vaccines Use Recombinant Protein Technology

Cuba began its vaccination campaign for children last week, starting with those aged 12 years and above. On Monday, it started covering the 2-11 age group.

Vaccination for children above has started in several other countries, and trials are on so younger kids can be covered. On Monday, Chile approved the Chinese Sinovac for children aged 6-12.

According to the AFP report, the Cuban Covid-19 vaccines have not undergone any international or scientific peer review.

The vaccines, the first to be developed in Latin America, are based on ‘recombinant protein technology’, the report said. The same technology was used for the US’ Novavax and France's Sanofi shots too, and they are also awaiting WHO approval.

Recombinant vaccines do not require extreme refrigeration.

Cuba currently has an active caseload of 38,092, while the total number of cases stands at 704,675. It has seen a massive spike in cases in the last few months. Of the total 5,881 deaths recorded since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly half were in the last one month alone.