Cuba confirms new record of 1,561 new daily Covid cases (June 21)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Cuba set a new record for daily infections on Monday after confirming 1,561 cases of covid-19, bringing the total number of positive cases to 169,365, according to the daily balance sheet of the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap).

Of the new cases, 1,511 are autochthonous, and 50 are imported, almost all from Russia.

The number of deaths rose to 1,170 with the addition of eleven deaths in the last day.

Cuban hospitals and isolation centers have 33,764 people in hospital: 8,364 active cases -58 in critical condition and 103 in serious condition-, 7,238 with suspected symptoms and the rest under epidemiological surveillance.

The western provinces of Havana, Matanzas, and Mayabeque reported the highest number of positives of the day with 320, 173, and 128, respectively.

June has already become the worst month of the pandemic in the Caribbean country, with 26,042 infections in 20 days and 205 deaths.

In the territories at risk, including the capital, a health intervention study is being carried out with Abdala and Soberana 02, the two most advanced vaccine candidates against the coronavirus of the five developed by Cuba.

According to official data, more than 2.2 million Cubans have received at least one dose of these formulas as part of the clinical trials and intervention studies developed in parallel to the health one.

Both are in the final phase of clinical trials -which determine their efficacy-, but they do not have the pharmacological registration or the authorization for emergency use by the island’s regulatory authority.

Last Saturday, scientists responsible for the Soberana 02 research reported that this vaccine candidate, developed by the Finlay Vaccine Institute (IFV), showed an efficacy of 62% in the preliminary analyses of the third phase of clinical trials.

They also advanced that in the next few days, authorization for the emergency use of that formula will be requested to the Center for the State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED), the regulatory body in Cuba.

Cuba is not a member of the World Health Organization’s Covax Mechanism created for middle and low-income countries to access vaccines, nor has it purchased them on the international market.