To the question "Would you agree with Colombia acquiring or producing the Cuban vaccine to help overcome the COVID-19 crisis?" in the country, 70.1% of those questioned said yes, according to the poll conducted through the social network Twitter.
The media, politicians, and representatives of various social sectors of this nation set their sights on the five Cuban vaccine candidates against Covid-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
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In an opinion column in the newspaper El Espectador, journalist and writer Patricia Lara Salive urged the government of President Iván Duque and the Ministry of Health to acquire the Cuban candidates Soberana 02 and Abdala.
The analyst explains what Cuba can offer "now that the coronavirus in Colombia becomes distressing, there are delays in shipments of the Sinovac vaccine, and the United States recommends suspending the Johnson & Johnson vaccine."
"On the one hand, the shipment, at a reasonable price (...) of a large number of Soberana 02 and Abdala vaccines, which will soon finish the phase III clinical trial and are already in a controlled population intervention trial", she specifies.
She emphasizes that Soberana Plus entered phase II and would be ideal to be applied to children, those over 80 years of age and convalescents of COVID-19 so that they increase their immune response, and that Mambisa and Soberana 01 are in phase I.
"If the Cuban vaccine is successful as announced by the WHO, it is not only the only Latin American vaccine, but it is more efficient than most at the moment. Duque should establish an agreement for the production of Cuban vaccines in Colombia, but he is blinded by sectarianism."
"But the most interesting thing is that Cuba can transfer to Colombia, in a very short time, the technology to set up its own production of vaccines in the final phase, from the pharmaceutical ingredient that the island would supply, as will be done in Iran and Venezuela," she emphasizes.
Recently, the newspaper El Tiempo addressed the issue based on an appeal by Colombia Humana senator Gustavo Petro to Duque to establish an agreement for the production of Cuban vaccines in Colombia.
"In a few months, Cuba could create the first vaccine in Latin America against COVID-19. Two of its vaccines, Soberana 02 and Abdala, are in Phase 3 clinical trials," notes the El Tiempo piece in its introduction.
"That is, the last step before the Cuban National Regulatory Agency can give them the go-ahead and administer them to the population, as well as show the results to the rest of the international counterpart organizations," it adds.
According to official data, in Colombia, 419 people died, and 17,212 new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in the last 24 hours.