Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs met with Ambassador of Cuba to Thailand to discuss Thai-Cuba cooperation on COVID-19 vaccine development.

On 4th June 2021, Mrs. Pornpimol Kanchanalak, Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nakorn Premsri, M.D., Director of National Vaccine Institute (NVI) and Mr. Wisit Tangkeangsirisin, Manager, Bureau of National Vaccine Capacity Development, NVI, met with H.E. Mr. Héctor Conde Almeida, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to Thailand. Participants included officers from the NVI and Latin America Division.

Both sides reiterated their continuously amicable and mutually beneficial relations, notably their close collaboration in the fields of medicine and public health which lays a solid foundation for cooperation in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Cuban side expressed their readiness to strengthen its collaboration with Thailand to develop COVID-19 vaccines, including technological transfer of the highly effective platform of recombinant protein. This collaboration will benefit Thailand’s goals in domestic development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and in becoming a manufacturing hub of COVID-19 vaccines in ASEAN.

Cuba is currently developing five COVID-19 vaccine candidates which utilise the aforementioned technology, which could be stored at 2 to 8 degrees Celcius. In mid-May 2021, the Cuban government commenced administering vaccines with the clinically advanced outcomes, Soberana 02 and Abdala, for their population. The Cuban Government expects to vaccinate the entire Cuban population by the end of this year.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuba has deployed 57 medical brigades to assist 40 countries in various regions such as Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Cuba has also been working with Venezuela in the development of COVID-19 vaccine, Abdala.

In addition, Siam Bioscience of Thailand and CIMAB S.A., a Cuba-based company, have formed a joint venture called ABINIS to develop and produce biopharmaceutical medicine for treatment of patients with kidney diseases and cancer. Those biopharmaceuticals are expected to be manufactured for commercial use by 2022.