Cuba: 85% of Havana Residents Got COVID-19 Vaccines

On Monday, Cuban authorities announced that 1.7 million people living in Havana have already received three doses of any of the domestically produced vaccines.

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"Vaccines will not only help us be protected from the virus, but also prevent our relatives and friends from getting infected," said Liudmila Perez, who expects the epidemiological situation on the island would improve in the coming weeks.

Along with a dozen of neighbors, she waited in line to receive an Abdala vaccine at a health center near home. In the area where she lives, some 12,400 people have already received three doses of Cuban vaccines.

The April 19 Clinic Director Ainadis Alfaro said that the COVID-19 sanitary intervention will bring herd immunity in the country's most populous city with 2 million inhabitants. "I have no doubt, people will improve their immune response against new variants of the virus circulating across the island," she said

In addition, new protocols in handling the pandemic have been implemented in Havana, including home hospitalization due to beds shortage in hospitals and isolation centers.

"I strongly believe that the vaccination campaign, along with more restrictive COVID-19 measures, will contain the spread of the pandemic nationwide," health worker Marilyn Curbelo said.

Currently, doctors, medical students, and nurses are working on a vaccination campaign to immunize pregnant women. Cuban nurse Nitza Diaz, 57, has administered about 50 doses of locally-made COVID-19 vaccines on a daily basis since last May, when the health intervention started in Havana.

"I feel very satisfied," she said. "The Cuban vaccines could very much reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths."