GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. November 26, 2003

Production underway on Cuban vaccine against meningitis,
pneumonia and otitis . The vaccine against the Haemophilus
influenzae type B bacteria to be administered to Cuban
children starting 2004

BY LILLIAM RIERA
Granma International staff writer

PRODUCTION is underway on one million doses of the Cuban
vaccine against the Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib)
bacteria, the cause of meningitis, pneumonias and otitis in
early childhood. This will allow the initial immunization
of children in 2004, announced Vicente Vérez Bencomo,
Doctor of Chemical Science, at the 2003 Havana
Biotechnology Conference.

Quimi-Hib is the commercial name for the vaccine, "which on
being used in the National Vaccine Program, will allow the
country to save $2-3 million per year in terms of imports,"
said Vérez Bencomo, the main inventor of the vaccine, in an
interview with Granma International in June of this year.

He explained that "the vaccine will be administrated to
babies in four doses: at two, four and six months, plus a
booster when the child is one-and-a-half."

Vérez Bencomo noted the possibility of the product being
marketed abroad starting next year.

Quimi-Hib is already registered with the Cuban Government
Center for the Control of Medicines (CECMED), and has
applications for patents in 40 countries. According to
clinical results, the vaccine provides 99.7% long-term
protection against a bacteria that causes the deaths of
half a million children worldwide.

Other vaccines against the bacteria, manufactured through
its cultivation are marketed globally, but as Vérez Bencomo explained, the
Cuban one "is the first synthetic one completed at
laboratory level."

He told Granma International that work on the vaccine has
been ongoing out since 1989, and called the vaccine the
"first important product of Cuban biotechnology originated
in university laboratories (the University of Havana's
Chemistry Department)." He emphasized that "its development
is the fruit of collaboration between the Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology Center and the Finlay and
Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine institutes, among other
scientific agencies."

In Cuba, the first campaign of protection against this
bacteria began on January 10, 1999, with the vaccine that
already existed globally, and since then, some 150,000
children born in the country every year have been
vaccinated.