Cienfuegos begins community-based intervention on pneumococcal vaccination of children. Photo: Finley Vaccine Institute/Twitter.
On Tuesday, Cienfuegos started a new community trial of the pneumococcal vaccine for children aged one to five.
The intervention, approved by the Ministry of Public Health and the National Center for Drug Control, will cover minors in the main city of Cienfuegos, whose parents gave informed consent between September and November, according to local media reports . newspaper. September 5th.
The Quimi-Vio vaccine candidate will be administered intramuscularly. Children 12 months to 23 months will get two doses, eight weeks apart; children 2 to 5 years old will get one dose.
Today, in Cienfuegos, our pneumococcal vaccine Quimi-Vio 🇨🇺 started clinical studies in the pediatric population.All children aged 1 to 5 in the province #CubaObtain parental consent in advance.#CubanScience #cubalife pic.twitter.com/jPeyKbyqDz
– Finlay Vaccine Institute (@FinlayInstituto) September 5, 2023
According to an article published September 5th In 2022, this intervention is based on multiple clinical trials and studies on the effectiveness and impact of the vaccine. Between 2017 and 2019, a community trial was conducted to assess the impact of pneumococcal vaccination in the provincial pediatric population.
The coverage rate of this activity reached 91.3%, and 16,426 children aged 1 to 5 were vaccinated. During post-vaccination safety monitoring, no serious adverse events related to the vaccine candidate were recorded.
Dr. Rinaldo Puga Gómez, a pediatric primary and secondary specialist and the project’s lead clinical investigator since 2012, said the injection proved safe in trials, with a The expected minor adverse events occurred locally.
In these cases, it simply causes the same reactions as any other vaccine, notably pain and redness at the injection site, while from a systemic standpoint, most commonly fever in some cases, the official information added. .
Quimi-Vio, a heptavalent conjugate vaccine candidate, faced a high degree of scientific, chemical, analytical and technical complexity in obtaining it.
Protection against seven of the world’s most contagious and highly prevalent pneumococcal serotypes, the causative agents of most childhood pneumonia and bacterial meningitis, as well as bloodstream infections, otitis media, sinusitis and bronchitis.
Until 2022, Cuba will not be able to obtain the two commercial vaccines available in the world to prevent pneumococcus, Prevenar 13 and Synflorix, because, in addition to being expensive, the production of both vaccines involves US capital.
With Quimi-Vio, the island will gain technological sovereignty in the fight against the disease caused by the bacterium, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), kills an estimated 1.6 million people worldwide each year, including nearly 800,005 children under the age of 18, mostly in developing countries.