Big News in the synthetic vaccine production
In Havana, a synthetic vaccine was developed to protect against pneumonia and meningitis. The significance of this discovery is that the process used to make the vaccine has made it possible to provide the drug to the public for a very low price.
This is the first vaccine for humans made with a chemically produced antigen, Cuban scientists said. The available, conventional vaccine is made using a difficult and more costly process of growing antigens in a bacterial culture.
“It took us six years,” said Dr. Vicente Verez, head of the University of Havana’s Synthetic Antigens Laboratory. “But what could be more precious for society than to have healthy two-month-old babies,” he said.
Poor nations that depend on multinational pharmaceutical companies for the vaccine — now costing $3 a dose — will now have a less expensive alternative, Verez said.
The disease has been almost erased in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said. But it remains a problem in developing countries where the cost of the vaccine has been a barrier to widespread immunization.
Clinical trials conducted in the central Cuban province of Camaguey, first on adult volunteers, then on four-year-old children and finally on babies, showed a 99.7 percent success rate in developing the required antibodies.
The technology for the new vaccine was patented in 1999 by the University of Ottawa and the University of Havana. The Canadians discovered how to simplify crucial chemical reactions and Cuba applied the method on a larger scale, Verez said.
Hopefully the fabrication process will be revealed so all countries may develop other vaccines for many other deadly diseases. Somehow I don’t think it will work that way, but the good thing is that this may help Cuba’s economy as well as its children.