4.9 million doses of Cuban Abdala vaccine arrive in Mexico

A second shipment of 4.9 million doses of Cuban Abdala vaccine arrived in Mexico last Thursday to be used in the coronavirus vaccination campaign in that country.

“A batch of 4.9 million doses of Cuban Abdala vaccine against COVID-19 arrived in Mexico to be used in the immunization campaign in the sister Aztec country,” reported on Twitter the Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment Rodrigo Malmierca.

“The proven effectiveness of our vaccines is recognized in various countries,” added the minister in the usual triumphalist tone of Cuban propaganda, which contrasts with the doubts that the application of the Cuban vaccine has generated in the Mexican population.

This Saturday, for example, the newspaper The country reported that, in the middle of the sixth wave of Covid-19 infections, the application of booster vaccines for people over 18 years of age with the drug Abdala, which began in Mexico on December 21, has started with little influx due to the dates, but also to the doubts that the Cuban vaccine has raised.

On November 25, Mexico received the first batch of vaccines against COVID-19 Abdala from Cuba, as part of the signing of agreements signed by both governments.

The shipment consisted of 4,092,500 doses of Abdala that are intended for the immunization of adults.

Last September, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the signing of an agreement with Cuba to the purchase of 9 million doses of Abdala, which would be used in children between 5 and 11 years old.

“We already have the contract with the government of Cuba and its biotechnology company for the biological, with 9 million doses, because the Abdala vaccine has a three-dose schedule, it will be enough for 3 million girls and boys,” said Hugo López-Gatell, undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion of the Aztec nation.

In December 2021, Mexico authorized the emergency use of the Cuban Abdala vaccine, a decision that caused criticism in the Mexican medical sector, since the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet given its approval to this or any of the Cuban vaccines against the coronavirus.

“The only vaccine against COVID-19 that has been published, that has undergone reviews by health authorities and that has been approved for use in children aged 5-11 years is Pfizer with a dose of 10 mcgs. “Any other vaccine, Abdala included, has not been authorized by the authorities that are responsible for monitoring and reviewing its safety and effectiveness in this age group,” Cipatli Ayuzo declared last April, member of the Mexican Academy of Pediatrics.

For her part, Mexican Rep. America Rangel has accused Lopez Obrador of put the health of millions of Mexican children at risk who will receive the Cuban drug.

Rangel, from the opposition National Action Party (PAN), accused AMLO of financing the Cuban regime through the purchase of vaccines, being able to immunize its population with others of similar prices and certified by world health authorities.

Although the Cuban government said that it would present the Abdala vaccine to the WHO for approval for emergency use, nothing has been known about said validation process by the international organization.

In April of this year, the president of the Cuban state biopharmaceutical complex BioCubaFarma, Eduardo Martínez Díaz, acknowledged Cuba's responsibility in the delay in obtaining the WHO opinion on Abdala.

The official noted that “the WHO is a serious organization” that “is not delaying the process” and admitted that the cause of the “small delay” was due to an “internal element of ours.”

Last May, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that his administration would buy a Cuban vaccine in the production phase for children under two years of age that “have given them very good results,” he said, referring to clinical trials.

López Obrador also revealed the hiring of more than 500 Cuban doctors, a decision highly questioned by Mexican health professionals, politicians from that country and by public opinion in general.