On Sunday, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro announced that his country received 900,000 Abdala vaccines, which will be administrated to minors as part of the mass COVID-19 immunization campaign.
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“We thank Cuba’s Revolutionary government for this shipment. Hopefully, other 14 million Cuban vaccines will arrive in our country soon," Maduro stated.
The Abdala vaccine proved to have an efficacy rate of 92,28 percent in clinical trials conducted in Cuba and Venezuela. After testing its quality, safety, and effectiveness, Cuba’s Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment, and Medical Devices (CECMED) approved the emergency use of this vaccine in July. Scientists also began the necessary procedures to ensure that the World Health Organization (WHO) experts qualify it as a suitable product for COVID-19 emergency treatment.
Venezuela has also acquired 693,600 Sinovac vaccines, 1,8 billion Sinopharm vaccines, and 10 million of the Sputnik V vaccines. All COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed in the Bolivarian country free of charge to the entire population, including foreign residents.
So far, 9,731,808 Venezuelans have received at least one dose of these vaccines, and health authorities have fully immunized over 21 percent of the population.
The Bolivarian government announced that face-to-face lessons at all educational levels will re-start on Oct. 25, once over 50 percent of the population is fully vaccinated against the disease. “The upcoming arrival of new vaccines makes us very optimistic,” Maduro stated.
As of Oct. 2, this Latin American country had reported 373,332 coronavirus cases and 4,510 related deaths, 27 of which occurred in the last 24 hours.