CUBA-HEALTH: Tests to Start on AIDS Vaccine

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 28 1996 (IPS) - Cuban health officials will begin tests on 80 human volunteers in September of a vaccine they hope will eventually lead to a drug to fight AIDS.

After completing tests of the vaccine on chimpanzees, officials stressed, however, the anti-AIDS programme was still in an experimental stage that would continue for at least four more years.

The compound officials hope will combat the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) will be injected into volunteers at the Center for Genetic and Biotechnological Engineering (CIBG) in Havana.

“There is no danger of anyone contracting the disease, because we will be injecting an artificial virus; in other words, a structure similar to that of the AIDS virus created through genetic engineering techniques”, explained Manuel Limonta, director of the CIBG.

Limonta is one of the 80 volunteers who, for the four-year period will participate in the four clinical phases of the vaccine tests to test the efficacy of the vaccine on human beings.

The silence surrounding AIDS research here was broken at the end of 1994 when Gustavo Sierra, head of the National Vaccines Program, announced that Cuba was looking toward developing an anti- AIDS vaccine before the year 2000.

He based his prediction on Cuba’s biotechnological potential, which has obtained a high degree of development in Cuba in since 1991, at the same time that the economy was sinking.

According to sources at the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment, the pharmaceutical industry has brought more than 200 million dollars into the Cuban economy over the last two years, and occupies the sixth place among the county’s exports.

Conceived as a scientific-productive complex, this sector currently has 150 research centers, and the backing of more than 100 industrial plants as well as some 5,000 scientists and technicians.

After the fall of its socialist allies in Eastern Europe, the Cuban government placed a high priority on developing its medical-pharmaceutical sector as part of its strategy of diversifying its sources of income.

Rosa Elena Simeon, Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, said last April that “biotechnology had paid for the initial investment,” though she did not state what the total costs of the efforts were.

In 1993, the Office for Commercial Brands and Patents in Washington acknowledged Cuban patents for the first anti- meningitis BC vaccine in the world, as well as for an agent that blocks heart attacks and a type of industrial enzyme that reverses sucrose.

Cuba is one of the largest producers of the anti-hepatitis B vaccine, and produces a range of other pharmaceuticals as well.

The Finlay Institute is currently conducting tests on humans for an immunizing agent against leptospirosis. It is also working on a vaccine against cholera, and is participating in a World Health Organization project to develop a multiple or “ideal” vaccine for infants.

With more than 200 products, which include several pieces of high-precision electro-medical equipment, Cuba is trying to compete in a select market, dominated largely by seven transnational corporations, most of them from the United States.

Analysts consider that marketing is the biggest challenge for the Cuban medical-pharmaceutical industry, especially because of the United States blockade.

Top managers of United States pharmaceutical companies have visited Cuba and have expressed interest in participating in some kind of association, once the blockade is lifted.

The visit occurred before February 24th, when the Cuban Air Force shot down two airplanes belonging to a Cuban exile organization, an incident which precipitated the approval of the Helms-Burton law in the United States.

The Helm-Burton law increases U.S. pressure on Cuba and makes the possibility for collaboration between the two country’s pharmaceutical companies even more remote. On the one hand, the law threatens to sue companies who traffic in properties confiscated from U.S. citizens by the Cuban government.

On the other hand, it becomes difficult to side with Cuba because the United States dominates the world market in pharmaceutical products.

However, not everyone agrees. York Medical Inc. of Canada, for example, has created joint companies with the Cuban pharmaceutical industry in order to obtain licenses and market Cuban pharmaceutical products in industrialized countries.

According to David Allan, president of York Medical, the firm will market Diramic, a system for rapid microbiological diagnosis and the streptochinasa, while it studies another 15 products.

According to experts, the natural and potential market for the Cuban medical-pharmaceutical industry is in industrialized countries.

These Cuban products could be the answer to the needs generated by cyclical epidemics in those countries. Such was the case in the sale of the anti-meningitis B vaccine in Latin America.

The export of pharmaceutical products could generate an alternative source for Cuba for paying its debt to Latin American nations. In larger or smaller amounts, the Cuban government used that formula with Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela.