Cuba is working on a vaccine to combat COVID-19

During a Round Table TV program aired Monday dedicated to Cuban biotechnology, Gerardo Guillén, research director of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), explained that the drug called CIGB 2020 is undergoing clinical trials at the Luis Díaz Soto Hospital in Havana.

The trial involves volunteer patients suspected of being carriers of the disease, highlighted the Cuban National News Agency.

Guillen added that it is applied nasally, and sublingually and encouraging results have already been observed regarding the activation of the innate immune system, which is very important for successfully combating this disease.

We have seen how the molecules on the cell surface that mark the innate immune system related to viruses are stimulated fundamentally, and we also see at the blood level that lymphocytes and other chromatographs that are in charge of presenting the antigens to the coronavirus are being stimulated, the researcher explained.

He added that the CIGB 2020 is a medicine that is inserted, together with another Cuban vaccine developed by the Finlay Institute, in a field of research that is much debated in contemporary science, which is the development of specific vaccines to stimulate innate immunity, which is driven by the new coronavirus.

Our researchers have been able to make the laboratory technologies available to this research in record time. After these first results, we will continue with the trials and analyzing the results, said Guillén.