More Financing Approved for Cuba’s COVID-19 Vaccines

The first external financing for Cuba's vaccines to fight COVID-19 was approved on Tuesday by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), for an amount of 46.7 million euros aimed to produce 200 million doses of its home-grown vaccines.

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According to a press release on the financial institution's website, as an extraterritorial country member of CABEI, Cuba will have the possibility to strengthen the capacities to develop other drugs and improve the medical equipment and diagnostic kits for the benefit of the population.

Dante Mossi, CABEI's Executive President, noted that the operation would improve the development of vaccines, reducing the people's risk of getting infected and shortening the health crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic; the executive also stressed this would enhance the country's economic reactivation.  

The loan includes strengthening the Cuban biopharmaceutical industry's infrastructure, increasing the production of injectable antibiotics, parenteral solutions (serums), generic drugs and similar products.  It also comprises the acquisition of supplies and material for medical protection to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The website outlined that the project to strengthen the biopharmaceutical industry will combat the disease in Cuba and the region and is intended to reach higher levels of economic productivity by developing products of great importance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project includes introducing modern technology and diversification for the benefit of the National Health System and other Latin American countries. This project will be launched by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).