Cuba Is Becoming A Center Of Coronavirus Vaccine Development!

 

CUBA

The Little Engine That Could

Even as Cuba remains isolated from the US, it’s poised to become the center of a web of vaccination distribution throughout the rest of the world.

The poor, communist-led island in the Caribbean has a whopping five vaccine candidates under development, the Washington Post reported. The drugs can stand room temperatures for weeks. That’s ideal for low-income tropical countries that are struggling to acquire sufficient vaccines as American and European officials horde doses to inoculate their citizens.

US-based activist Danny Haiphong went so far as to argue on GCTN, a Chinese-owned news outlet, that the West was waging a war against the rest of the world by withholding vaccines. Around 60 percent of vaccinations occur in rich countries where only 16 percent of the global population resides, he said. Africa, in contrast, is home to 17 percent of the world’s population but has received only two percent of all vaccinations.

Cuba is challenging that narrative. “Cuba has a dream — to have so much Covid-19 vaccine that not only could everyone on the island get immunized but Cuba would give it away to friends and allies around the world,” wrote National Public Radio, adding that Cuban officials might give the vaccine to tourists who decide to come and spend their money on the island.

The Cuban state-owned media outlet Prensa Latina, for example, touted the possibility of leaders in Havana helping their comrades in Nicaragua and the rest of Latin America where they have long been competing in an ideological war against American free marketeers.

Writing in the Conversation, Queen’s University Transnational Studies Professor Jennifer Ruth Hosek described how Cuba has applied best practices to the pandemic from the start. Its public healthcare system, government-funded research, robust training and smart disaster planning have worked well while richer countries have allowed politics, anti-vaccination conspiracies and market failures to compromise their responses.

Less than 500 people in Cuba, a country of 11 million, have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country’s Henry Reeve Brigade, a Cuban medical group deployed to international hotspots, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts against Covid-19 around the world.

Cuba is far from perfect. Human rights activists recently launched a hunger strike to protest against the government’s suppression of free thought, expression and assembly, reported Miami-based NBC affiliate WPLG. The country’s economy is also suffering from an extreme contraction due to the collapse of international tourism during the pandemic and continued American economic sanctions, added the Tampa Bay Times.

But when it comes to vaccines, Cuba is doing just fine.

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