Cuba plans to produce 10 million doses of hemophilia flu vaccines annually

Cuba plans to produce 10 mln doses of hemophilia flu vaccines annually

Cuba is planning to produce at least 10 million doses a year of a vaccine containing synthetic antigens against influenza hemophilia B, the vaccine's inventor said on Thursday.

Vicente Verez from the University of Havana's Antigen Research Center made the announcement during the 18th International Chemistry Conference in Santiago de Cuba, 860 km southeast of Cuba's capital Havana.

Verez said the vaccine is the first of its kind in the world to use synthetic antigens as a base. He said he had seen positive results among inoculated children.
He said the vaccine would soon be exported and become available in some other countries.

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The scientist also said Cuba is working on a new project that promises to cure haemophilia flu and five other diseases in one shot.

More here

countries, what a horrible thing. We must keep boycotting this country so the US remains safe from this evil empire.:sarcasm:

Do they claim this to be a business or a humanitarian decision?

and will be affordable to underdeveloped countries. The current vaccine was developed in industrial nations and is very expensive.

Cuba always has a nasty catch to their deals. Along with the vaccine Cuba offers doctors too.

It takes a brave leader like _Bush to refuse such a raw deal of help from a threatening country like Cuba.

:sarcasm:

Launch the bombers!;)

this has nothing to do with hemophilia the blood clotting disorder...or flu for that matter.

it is about "haemophilus influenzae", a bacteria (rather than a virus) that causes meningitus in children.

I was scratching my head over the term "hemophilia flu".

figure out why this country has such a bug up its' derriere over that evil, wicked castro. best educated, medical cared for country outside the US and canada in the western hemisphere......and i can't travel there (unless i get special visas or leave from other countries).

i think i'd feel safer in cuba than almost anywhere else i've traveled.

.. unless you have direct relatives in Cuba (but you still need US gov approval). If that is the case (like thousands of Cuban expat "exiles") one can hop on one of the fully loaded daily flights out of L.A., Miami, and Ft Lauderdale.

There have been hundreds of Americans busted by the US OFAC/Treasury Dept for travel to Cuba via 3rd countries who face tens of thousands of dollars in fines or face jail time.

to travel freely to the U.S.? Why not?

Many DU threads have been dedicated to stories of the US gov denying visas to Cuban teachers, doctors, researchers, musicians, dancers, writers, etc.. But other Cubans of lesser status are allowed by the US gov to come to the US to visit their families here, as long as they promise to return to Cuba. I have several friends in Cuba who have done so, and friends in Miami who's family in Cuba have come to Miami to visit. But still, the US gov denies many of these applications for family visits, not Cuba.

Cubans are wanted in the US by the _Bush admin if the come on a raft or a smugglers boat. (These miscreants have usually been disqualified for a legal immigration visa as per a US background investigation in Cuba.)

The USA currently offers over 20,000 LEGAL immigration visas per year to Cubans (and Bush has announced that the number would increase despite the fact that not all 20,000 were applied for in the last few years). This number is more than any other single country in the world. The US interests section in Cuba does the required criminal background check on the applicants.

The US's 'wet foot/ dry foot' policy (that applies to Cubans only) permits all Cubans, including Cuban criminals and felons, who arrive on US shores by illegal means to remain in the US despite having failed to qualify (or even apply) for a legal US immigration application.

Cubans who leave for the US without a US visa are returned to Cuba (if caught at sea - mainly in smuggler's go-fast boats @ $5,000 per head) by a US/Cuban repatriation agreement. But IF they make it to US soil, no matter who they are or what their criminal backround might be, they get to stay in the US and enjoy perks offered ONLY TO CUBAN IMMIGRANTS (via the US's Cuban Adjustment Act and a variety of other 'Cubans only' perks). Perks like instant work visa, instant green card, instant access to sec 8 taxpayer assisted housing, instant social security, instant welfare, free health care, and more.

These perks are not offered to any other immigrant group, but yet, without the perks offered to Cubans, immigrants still pour into the US from all over the Caribbean and the Latin Americas - many taking greater risks than Cubans to get here.

discussed in this book by a former New York Times reporter and author, published in 2002, having been written before _Bush got his new severe bans on Cuba travel in place:

In Cuba, one used to be either a revolucionario or a contrarevolutionario, while those who decided to leave were gusanos (worms) or escoria (scum). In Miami, the rhetoric has also been harsh. Exiles who do not endorse a confrontational policy with Cuba, seeking instead a negotiated settlement, have often been excoriated as traidores (traitors) and sometimes espías (spies). Cubans, notably cultural stars, who visit Miami but choose to return to their homeland have been routinely denounced. One either defects or is repudiated.

But there has been a slow but steady shift in the last decade-a not to the clear majority of Cubans en exilio and on the island who crave family reunification. Since 1978, more than one million airline tickets have been sold for flights from Miami to Havana. Faced with the brisk and continuous traffic between Miami and Havana, hard-liners on both sides have opted to deny the new reality. Anomalies such as the phenomenon of reverse balseros, Cubans who, unable to adapt to the pressures and bustle of entrepreneurial Miami, return to the island, or gusañeros, expatriates who send a portion of their earnings home in exchange for unfettered travel back and forth to Cuba (the term is a curious Cuban hybrid of gusano and compañero, or comrade), are unacknowledged by both sides, as are those who live in semi-exilio, returning home to Cuba for long holidays.

Page xviii, preface
Cuba Confidential
Ann Louise Bardach
Former New York Times, Vanity Fair writer
Currently Newsweek International

i don't know why, but the idea of synthetic vaccines bothers me.

'Synthetically produced vaccines offer many advantages over conventional vaccines, including enhanced purity and effectiveness. They also have a longer shelf life and can be mass produced, potentially at a lower cost.'

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3795&fcategory_desc=Science

A very interesting book that discusses the DNA cross contamination of vaccines developed using primates (and other lab testing species)..

-Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional?-
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0923550127/104-9739240-5752713?v=glance&n=283155



Some interesting articles/interviews also..

http://www.all-natural.com/horo-3.html

http://www.whale.to/w/ebola.html

We just don't hear much about it here!

.....Orthodox Western economists would tend to dismiss this socialist model of medical innovation and production as a quaint aberration in today's world, clearly out of synch in the globalised economy. But the Cuban record boasts 26 inventions with more than 100 international patents already granted.

One of the major earners is the successful export of the hepatitis B vaccine to more than 30 countries. Dr Pedro Lopez, who directs the testing of Cuban biotechnology products, said that 'all the clinical trials have shown that it is the most effective vaccine (against hepatitis B) in the world'.

Although the US and France also manufacture a hepatitis B vaccine, there are Western experts who support the Cuban claim. Mr Louis Baretta, head of Aventis Pasteur, a big Canadian pharmaceutical, told The Financial Times in June 2002: 'Their work on hepatitis is likely to become the standard for the rest of the industry.'

The first synthetic vaccine for the prevention of pneumonia and meningitis is the latest Cuban breakthrough. Aimed at lowering the cost of immunising children in poor, developing countries, the vaccine was launched late last year before a gathering of world experts at Havana's International Biotechnology Congress.
(snip/...)

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3193

What an odd mistake.