24 ms·

Cuba′s Covid vaccine rivals Pfizer, Moderna

406 points by colinprince 5y ago

bufferoverflow 5y ago
Moderna is 94.1% effective. Pfizer is 94% effective. So it's almost as good.
- tchalla 5y ago
  You can't compare efficacies of vaccines across clinical trials because all of them aren't performed in the same environment.
  - mmmrtl 5y ago
    And you should really look at the confidence intervals on those point estimates
GuerraEarth 5y ago
El Che Guevara made free medical education rampant and commonplace. When there was a breakout of Ebola some years back, Cuba was there, FIRST, front and center. Rival that, anybody? No surprise here that their vax is superlative. ALSO, when nobody would allow disease-stricken cruise ships to dock for medical help,at the initiation of Covid-19,Cuba took them. That is how Cubans contracted Covid. Beautiful, good, excellent, time-capsule Cuba.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  Che Guevara also killed innocent political rivals by a firing squad, and put gay people in labor camps. What about their health?
  - celticninja 5y ago
    Whataboutism is rarely a good response to a comment, and almost never improves the conversation.
    - cbnotfromthere 5y ago
      There was no conversation in the first place. Just a bunch of absurd propaganda for a horror regime.
    - vogon_laureate 5y ago
      It’s a very appropriate response to a hagiographic description of a man who was directly responsible for the death and suffering of innocents. That’s not “whataboutism”. Whataboutism would be if the commenter were to point out that eg. Bill Gates is also really pro-healthcare and used his capitalist-derived billions to improve the lives of countless millions more people than the aforementioned homophobic communist tyrant.
      - celticninja 5y ago
        I disagree.
        vogon_laureate 5y ago
        Such a truly enriching riposte. It will take me eons to unpack it.
        celticninja 5y ago
        I didn't see the value in an argument.
        dang 5y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's exactly the wrong direction for the kind of discussion we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aazaa 5y ago
> According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma, Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the impressive results were announced. There's not a lot of information about exactly what this vaccine is or how it works. I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions based on press statements.
- vmurthy 5y ago
  > There's not a lot of information about exactly what this vaccine is or how it works. I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions based on press statements +1. Waiting for the results in a peer reviewed paper. Science by media is a bad paradigm as a lot of things during the pandemic have shown :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
> According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma, Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the impressive results were announced. One thing to be careful about is the the regulating authority and the testing authority and the developing authority are all the same and have a huge incentive to have good numbers, not the least of which is national pride. I would be careful with those numbers.
- tdrgabi 5y ago
  I think you have a good point. Not sure why you're downvoted or "almost invisible".
  - ArgyleSound 5y ago
    I agree too. I look forward to Cuba allowing third parties to corroborate their results.
- pepperonipizza 5y ago
  Absolutely, this number may be confirmed when tested by a third party. Medias were cautious on the russian's vaccine claims until the Lancet published a study on its efficacy. Edit: grammar
  - ArgyleSound 5y ago
    The Lancet publishing data does not mean the data is correct, they do not verify it. It's all based on trust.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's study on the connection between vaccines and autism, and the recent study on hydroxychloroquine based on entirely fabricated data.
- deleted 5y ago
bccdee 5y ago
This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of sending medical aid to other developing countries, and right now the vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is really, really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of lives.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sonograph 5y ago
  > This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of sending medical aid to other developing countries, and right now the vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is really, really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of lives. Does Cuba have the capacity to produce enough vaccines for those nations? That would be really surpising to me
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    They'll probably be more likely to share enough technical know how that production elsewhere is possible.
  - alamortsubite 5y ago
    I don't know the answer to that question, but since this is a protein vaccine it should at least be much easier to manufacture at scale.
  - jonas_kgomo 5y ago
    Cuba is also known to train African doctors and return them back to Africa. They also helped South Africa during the apartheid regime
    - kortilla 5y ago
      That has no relation to vaccine production at all.
Despegar 5y ago
Cuba actually has 5 vaccine candidates, and 2 of them have greater than 90% effectiveness. A great showing for a small, socialist island nation under decades of embargo by hostile anti-communist forces. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Soberana-02-COVID-19-Vaccine-To-Reach-95-Efficiency-20210625-0005.html https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Soberana-02-COVID-...
- nextstep 5y ago
  But also not surprising because despite the decades of restrictions which have limited Cuba’s ability to import medical supplies, they have one of the best medical systems in the world.
  - crakenzak 5y ago
    > they have one of the best medical systems in the world. citation needed
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      I believe the quality and breadth of Cuba's medical system rises to the level of conventional wisdom[1][2]. Edit: I forgot to link statistics for the country itself, not just the doctors they send abroad. They perform admirably against both the U.S. and most European countries[3]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism [2]: https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/ https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_stat...
    - belltaco 5y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      The citation is the first result of any search related to Cuba and medicine on any search engine.
luiscape 5y ago
I see no linked evidence therein; to either clinical trial results or equivalent accredited sources. Sounds like good news, but without any accompanying evidence this is just random click-bait.
- perlgeek 5y ago
  At least the early news report I have read about the Biontech/Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines didn't have links to the scientific studies either. This seems to be pretty standard for new these days :-( Even if the effectiveness number doesn't pan out to 92%, every working vaccine is another useful tool in the toolbox. I could imagine that many South- and Middle American countries have higher trust in Cuban than in US or European vaccines.
ElViajero 5y ago
> The best proof is the fact that 80% of all of Cuba's vaccines are produced in the country itself, Moya said. He was not surprised by the high efficacy of Abdala, saying it was simply the logical consequence of a health care system that had been performing steadily well for decades. It is impressive that a country like Cuba, subject to a long-lasting USA economic embargo, is able to keep a healthy health care system. More impressive if you compare child mortality (U5M under 5 years old) rates below 5.5 per 1000 live births, only bested in the Americas by Canada. I hope that the vaccine works as expected. To stop new mutations to appear so fast we depend on having as much world population vaccinated as possible.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  I think that is what happens when there are few opportunities on public services for corruption or exorbitant profit: efficiency soars. Actually "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless.
  - ElViajero 5y ago
    > "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless. I agree. In a capitalist country an "exorbitant profit" for a long time is a failure of the system. Why nobody else is producing the same service if there is so much profit to be gain? And, if there is competition, why is not shrinking that margins to compete? Capitalism is great when there are many small competitors that need to push quality up or prices down. If you only have 1 big corporation dominating each market, that's just communism with extra steps. The economy is just a planned economy and no competition nor capitalism is happening.
    - marcodiego 5y ago
      Monopoly is what happens when capitalism is not working right. Of course, that is not the single source of monopoly, but it should not exist when capitalism works correctly. There are probably many people who dream of capitalism as a chance to become a billionaire, not only such a possibility is very small, it actually frequently unfair: you need much more than honest merit to become one. The best part of capitalism is how it is a good system for the buyer and the costumer not for the seller or producer.
boomskats 5y ago
I’ve seen a lot of cynical responses to this. People are quick to forget that Cuba’s healthcare system & medical research are world leading. They have far more physicians per person than any other country in the world [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  They are not world leading. Number of doctors is not a metric of how good your medicine is. If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US.
  - joejohnson 5y ago
    >> If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US. Citation needed!
    - bufferoverflow 5y ago
      The US is so far ahead of other countries, it invents more new novel drugs than the next 5 countries combined. And then poor countries enjoy the cheap generic versions of these drugs, basically subsidized by the US. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee48ab185b97a https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee4...
      - onli 5y ago
        The US is incapable of making medications accessible to its own population. And not even willing to provide broad health insurance. That's not a country with a working or high quality medical system. Does the chart you link say anything about generic versions?
kube-system 5y ago
This is good news regardless, but I wish these articles had more detail. Some number of "% effective against COVID-19" is not meaningful on its own. Effective at doing what, exactly? Preventing symptoms? Preventing transmission? Preventing death? Comparisons between different vaccines aren't at all meaningful without this context, and I hope the authors realize this, despite not mentioning it.
- vidoc 5y ago
  > Effective at doing what, exactly? I think at this point all the 'efficacy' numbers given by drug companies for the various vaccines on the market are: relative risk reduction of hospitalization or death. Not uninteresting per se, but would be even more interesting if paired with the absolute risk number [1]. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/
  - ec109685 5y ago
    Absolute risk will ebb and flow with the abundance of the virus in a population, so it wouldn’t be useful as a comparison or as a predictor for the future since every trial will be different.
  - perlgeek 5y ago
    There are basically 4 effectiveness numbers, based on whether you measure: * positive PCR tests * showing symptoms * hospitalization * death I share kube-system's frustration with the media glossing over those details quite often. Here in Germany, there were numbers thrown around such as the mRNA vaccines being 90%+ effective, and the AstraZeneca being only in 60ies or 70ies (which was likely based on PCR tests). Which made many Germans hesitant to get that vaccine. Turns out, AstraZeneca prevents hospitalization at a roughly 90% effectiveness rate (recent numbers from England, don#t have link ready right now), which sound much better than 65% number.
    - baix777 5y ago
      A recent study put the Pfizer vaccine at a 97% hospitalization prevention rate, which is much better than the AZ one. How comparable all these studies is a good question. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/real-world-studies-detail-high-pfizer-covid-vaccine-protection https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/real-wor...
baybal2 5y ago
Why is this something to be surprised of? Antiviral vaccines, let alone inactivated ones are sixties-seventies era biotechnology. Any country with any much substantial industry can make one in 18 months, let alone during national crisis, and an emergency law, unless its government can't even tie its own shoelaces.
- ncann 5y ago
  You made it sound like child's play, and yet how many countries have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine and use it for their own people? And under US embargo no less, that's actually the most impressive part.
  - acituan 5y ago
    > yet how many countries have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine and use it for their own people? One of the best things about international economy is that not every country needs to invest in their own $anything if they can import it from the best, especially for cheaper. Therefore it is wrong to equivocate the number of countries that has developed their own vaccines with the number of countries that can develop them. Cube, seems like, developed it because they had no choice, not as a tour de force of their medical know-how.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      I believe one does not rely on international trade during a global pandemic.
      - simfree 5y ago
        If anything international trade dependency robbed Canada and many other nations of the ability to develop a vaccine and vaccinate their population in a timely manner. Only those nations with capable vaccine development and manufacturing capabilities were able to first or second in line to vaccinate their population.
dj_gitmo 5y ago
Having domestic vaccine development and production capabilities probably didn't seem that important to a lot of countries until recently. I bet a lot of countries are going to try and developer their own capabilities as a result of this crisis.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Point them to SciHub!
pmoleri 5y ago
This is a great example. It's incredible than in all latin america no other country has developed a vaccine, having huge countries like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Brazil partnered with a lab in China. Their govt made a lot of mistakes, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    > Their govt made a lot of mistakes, but this doesn't seem to be one of them. The FEDERAL government did made this mistake. Repeatedly: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/veja-10-vezes-em-que-bolsonaro-criticou-coronavac-24843568 https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/veja-10-vezes-em-que-bolsona...
    - zanellato19 5y ago
      We do have a few vaccines in development here, but the federal government seems to want to block them all. There is ButanVac, there is one in development in UFPR and I'm sure there are others. Sadly, our federal government is beyond terrible right now, but I imagine we could have developed one of our own already.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    A state government partnered with China. The president criticised the vaccine that came from the partnership because the governor is his political rival.
    - mixmastamyk 5y ago
      I see, thanks.
- fernandezpablo 5y ago
  Can't believe people is so eager to believe in this without any real scientific publication of vaccine efficacy. Cuba lacks things so common as soap, to the point that you can bribe police officers or even pay sex workers with a tiny hotel soap bar or shampoo flask.
tchalla 5y ago
> "The CIGB Research Institute has 30 years of experience in vaccine research. I trust the results that have been published. These are serious studies, with the participation of researchers and institutions committed to science," Moya said. We at least have one expert epidemiologist vouching for the results.
- coredog64 5y ago
  Perhaps a false equivalency, but how many epidemiologists were on Twitter and elsewhere in 2020 strongly contesting the lab leak theory?
  - Yoric 5y ago
    Note that this lab leak theory is, at the current stage, still a theory. At best, time will tell whether it was true.
streamofdigits 5y ago
The fact that it is a different type of vaccine seems quite significant
peter_retief 5y ago
Silly propoganda, it is unbelievable people still fall for this nonsense. I had a laugh reading the old tired revolotutionary rhetoric.
superkuh 5y ago
Excellent news but there's a translation error or misunderstanding in this article. > The scientists are using yeast as a receptor-binding domain. I think they must mean they're using yeast as the protein expression medium and encode the receptor binding domain of the spike protein (along with the rest of the spike?) with yeast-y promoters and base sequence preferences. I guess there's nothing on the spike protein that needs to be glycosylated so non-mammal cell culture works.
- noveltyaccount 5y ago
  I was reading about the mRNA approach recently and wondered why not just inject the spike protein itself? Why have our body make the protein instead? Does anyone here know? It's interesting to see that both approaches yield such good results, and the end result, triggering immune response to the spike, seems about the same.
  - detaro 5y ago
    That's what the Novavax vaccine does, but it's still in testing and approval stages (although the trials results for now look like it works fine). As far as I understand, part of the problem is finding a way to produce the correct protein efficiently.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > Why have our body make the protein instead? Not so easy to make enough, and handle it just like every isolated biological molecule?
    - danzk 5y ago
      It's expensive and difficult to scale when you're trying to make millions of doses.
  - superkuh 5y ago
    It boils down to the mRNA process being faster and more of a sure thing for a novel virus. I hope there are eventually many more effective protein based vaccines approved. The problem with expressing your protein in some animal cell is that often times there are sugars that cells add to proteins and they differ by lifeform type. So the protein will end up shaped different in a yeast than in a animal cell. Additionally, growing in a third party host lifeform often leads to situations where you can't get it to grow in the host anymore because the virus changes.
vanisher93 5y ago
Nah, not really, don’t believe those numbers, I’m from there, I know this is just political BS. Family and friends (some of them fully vaccinated) still struggle with COVID.
lvs 5y ago
It is a 3-dose protein vaccine. [1] "The second of these candidates and the fourth from Cuba uses yeast as a receptor binding domain protein and alumina as an adjuvant." [2] I suspect there is a translation issue here. I would hope this means they are recombinantly expressing some portion of the RBD in yeast, not that they are using yeast as a vector. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-vaccine-abdala.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-vacci... [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4654/rr-6 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4654/rr-6
- ericol 5y ago
  According to this [1] it's cultivated in yeast: > Su cultivo se realiza en células de levadura, lo que la diferencia de "Soberana 2" "Iit's cultivated in yeats, what differentiates it from 'Soberana 2' " (Another Cuban vaccine) [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-cuba--previsi%C3%B3n-_-abdala---la-segunda-potencial-vacuna-cubana--en-la-recta-final-de-pruebas/46464036 https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-cuba--previsi%C3%B3...
vanisher93 5y ago
Not really, I’m from there and I can totally assure this is just political BS. Family and friends (some of them fully vaccinated) are still struggling with the virus.
ffggvv 5y ago
is this according to their own numbers? if so they likely pulled them out of their ass.
macinjosh 5y ago
Socialism will always be playing catch-up to free markets. See the space race.
- lexs 5y ago
  Wasn't the USSR first in space? First ICBM , first artificial satellite, first man in space etc?
  - moogly 5y ago
    They had all the firsts expect for the last one, which someone decided was the only one that counted.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Also first interplanetary landing and first space station. To this day the cheapest and most effective way to send humans to LEO is still Soviet.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. It's tedious, nasty, and the last thing we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
zepearl 5y ago
> The Cuban vaccine is neither a vector vaccine nor does it work with mRNA technology. Instead, it's a so-called protein vaccine. + > That means it carries a portion of the spike protein that the virus uses to bind to human cells. It docks onto the receptors of the virus' own spike protein, thus triggering an immune reaction. "thus triggering an immune reaction" because...? (genuinely asking - I know nothing about vaccines)
- deviation 5y ago
  A vaccine is effective by triggering a small immune reaction within your body. They are essentially very small amounts of X virus, so that your body can trample it and build an immunity to the real thing.
  - officialjunk 5y ago
    ...very small _pieces_ of X virus...
  - selcuka 5y ago
    I think the question the OP was trying to ask can be rephrased as "why does a random piece of protein trigger an immune response?"
    - XorNot 5y ago
      I mean the short version is "everything does". The human immune system is psychotic to the point that we have organs it has to be kept isolated from or it will destroy them.
      - HKH2 5y ago
        That's immune privilege, right? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_privilege https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_privilege
- pas 5y ago
  Because foreign proteins are immunogenic. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-research-projects/immunogenicity-protein-based-therapeutics https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-resea...
ericol 5y ago
There are a few comments / questions about yeast in the cooments. According to this [1], quoting: Abdala, basado en la formulación de la proteína RBD (Dominio de Unión al Receptor) recombinante adyuvado en hidróxido de aluminio, emplea la proteína que se expresa en la levadura Pichia pastori, con un diseño que utiliza el RBD ACE 2, es decir, es el motivo que une al receptor y a través del cual el virus penetra a la célula e infecta al individuo. Abdala, based in the formulation of the RDB protein (receptor binding domain) adjuvanted* recombinant* in aluminum hydroxide, employs / uses the protein that expresses in Pichia Pastori yeast, with a design that uses the RDB AC 2, meaning, is the motiv that unites the receptor and thru wich the virus penetrates the cell and infects the subject. * & * I don't even know what these words mean in Spanish. I used G Translate for these 2 (I'm obviously way out of my pay grade here) [1] https://instituciones.sld.cu/hospmiguelenriquez/2021/04/22/informacion-acerca-de-los-cinco-candidatos-vacunales-desarrollados-en-cuba/ https://instituciones.sld.cu/hospmiguelenriquez/2021/04/22/i...
- maxerickson 5y ago
  I expect the protein is being described as recombinant (the yeast has been altered to produce it) and the vaccine is adjuvanted with the aluminum hydroxide.
gosukiwi 5y ago
I have absolutely no idea about biology, vaccines and stuff, but don't vaccines need like a shitload of testing? That was the reason the Russian vaccine wasn't accepted by the European Union for quite some time AFAIK. Now Cuba has a vaccine and is already giving it to their citizens. Are they guinnea pigs? Latin America being Latin America, if the Cuban vaccine works, other Latin American countries will most likely import it or manufacture it locally and apply it to their citizens, disregarding if it's properly tested or not. Because politics. Argentina is trying to mix second doses because it ran out of Sputnik (while there are some studies about mixing some vaccines, the government wants to mix two non-tested vaccines). And being the totalitarian government than it is, they will probably end up mixing it.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Argentina doesn’t have a totalitarian government.
  - gosukiwi 5y ago
    Then we agree to disagree :) I live in Argentina and we have very little freedom. The economic freedom is basically non-existant (can't buy foreign currency), and [private property is violated](https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/o6zfxq/usurpaci%C3%B3n_de_terrenos_en_reconquista_santa_fe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/o6zfxq/usurpaci%...) by the government to buy votes.
    - greendude29 5y ago
      Then you don't know what a totalitarian government is, you can disagree all you want :) Also mixing and matching is not as horrible a thing as you make it sound. Canada is doing it too for the second. Given that a largely white country is also doing it, does that now make you feel better about it?
      - senkora 5y ago
        Argentina is a largely white country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Argentina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Argentina I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there.
a0-prw 5y ago
Cuba has in general an outstanding health care system: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cuba-has-eliminated-mother-child-transmission-hiv-and-syphilis/ https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cuba-has-elim...
JordasFriend 5y ago
This conversation is gold! The logic behind some of these arguments are just flawless. I am pretty sure at this time I am wasting my time but hey, if I can convince one if you guys claiming that Cuba is great, is a world leader, has great healthcare and any other mumbo jumbo you all have been talking out here maybe I will gain something. Couple of things I would like to bring up: 1) Any data coming from the Cuban government has been corrupted. This data is no different from North Korea data. It is communist propaganda. I know is hard for many of you to understand, but people will lie. 2) Cuba is not a world leader in anything. Put all articles aside, put all random statistics aside. Think about it in a commonsense point of view. When was the last time you held a product designed in Cuba, manufactured in Cuba? Invented in Cuba? I drive a car designed in Japan, assembled in Mexico, with tires from Tupelo. I flight a plane with parts from Switzerland, Argentina, France, UK, etc. But I have never held a product from Cuba besides some arts and craft or some dumb cigar. 3) Cubans doctors are the best and are highest per capita. Well if you don’t have an Xray machine, MRIs, not even O2 tanks how can you be the best? I mean that is like saying you are the best programmer but never had a computer. And whoever tells me “oh but they have all that”, then are you telling me one of the poorest country in the entire hemisphere has the best medical equipment. This is like parking a lambo in front of a tent. It just does not add up. 4) These ideas of the vaccine, that they have a vaccine is ridiculous. I mean do you even know what it takes to manufacture a vaccine? There is a handful, and I mean you can count it with your hands the number of sites on earth that can manufacture much less design a vaccine and you are saying the poorest people on earth were able to come up not with one but 5 different ones? 5) There are few places on earth where people are willing to sacrifice their life in order to get out of the country. Among those are North Korea, Haiti, Somalia and Cuba. Tell me, according to you, what do all these countries excel at? Absolutely nothing just misery and poverty. Being Cuban myself living in the US and seeing other Cubans on this conversation trying to convince you otherwise. It is shocking to know that with all the resources we have at our disposal in the US somehow you were able to conclude that there is anything good in Cuba. I hope you do further research and be more inquisitive, sometimes you must step back and ask does the peg fit the hole? 5
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406 points by colinprince 5y ago

bufferoverflow 5y ago

Moderna is 94.1% effective. Pfizer is 94% effective. So it's almost as good.

tchalla 5y ago
You can't compare efficacies of vaccines across clinical trials because all of them aren't performed in the same environment.
- mmmrtl 5y ago
  And you should really look at the confidence intervals on those point estimates

GuerraEarth 5y ago

El Che Guevara made free medical education rampant and commonplace. When there was a breakout of Ebola some years back, Cuba was there, FIRST, front and center. Rival that, anybody? No surprise here that their vax is superlative. ALSO, when nobody would allow disease-stricken cruise ships to dock for medical help,at the initiation of Covid-19,Cuba took them. That is how Cubans contracted Covid. Beautiful, good, excellent, time-capsule Cuba.

bufferoverflow 5y ago
Che Guevara also killed innocent political rivals by a firing squad, and put gay people in labor camps. What about their health?
- celticninja 5y ago
  Whataboutism is rarely a good response to a comment, and almost never improves the conversation.
  - cbnotfromthere 5y ago
    There was no conversation in the first place. Just a bunch of absurd propaganda for a horror regime.
  - vogon_laureate 5y ago
    It’s a very appropriate response to a hagiographic description of a man who was directly responsible for the death and suffering of innocents. That’s not “whataboutism”. Whataboutism would be if the commenter were to point out that eg. Bill Gates is also really pro-healthcare and used his capitalist-derived billions to improve the lives of countless millions more people than the aforementioned homophobic communist tyrant.
    - celticninja 5y ago
      I disagree.
      - vogon_laureate 5y ago
        Such a truly enriching riposte. It will take me eons to unpack it.
        celticninja 5y ago
        I didn't see the value in an argument.
        dang 5y ago
        Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's exactly the wrong direction for the kind of discussion we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aazaa 5y ago

> According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma, Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the impressive results were announced. There's not a lot of information about exactly what this vaccine is or how it works. I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions based on press statements.

vmurthy 5y ago
> There's not a lot of information about exactly what this vaccine is or how it works. I'd be cautious about drawing conclusions based on press statements +1. Waiting for the results in a peer reviewed paper. Science by media is a bad paradigm as a lot of things during the pandemic have shown :)

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RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

> According to the state-run biotech corporation, BioCubaFarma, Abdala has proven about 92.28% effective against COVID-19 in clinical trials, which would put it the same league as the most effective vaccines BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna. Huge applause erupted in the auditorium of the CIGB this week when the impressive results were announced. One thing to be careful about is the the regulating authority and the testing authority and the developing authority are all the same and have a huge incentive to have good numbers, not the least of which is national pride. I would be careful with those numbers.

tdrgabi 5y ago
I think you have a good point. Not sure why you're downvoted or "almost invisible".
- ArgyleSound 5y ago
  I agree too. I look forward to Cuba allowing third parties to corroborate their results.
pepperonipizza 5y ago
Absolutely, this number may be confirmed when tested by a third party. Medias were cautious on the russian's vaccine claims until the Lancet published a study on its efficacy. Edit: grammar
- ArgyleSound 5y ago
  The Lancet publishing data does not mean the data is correct, they do not verify it. It's all based on trust.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's study on the connection between vaccines and autism, and the recent study on hydroxychloroquine based on entirely fabricated data.
deleted 5y ago

bccdee 5y ago

This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of sending medical aid to other developing countries, and right now the vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is really, really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of lives.

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sonograph 5y ago
> This is pretty exciting news. Cuba has a long history of sending medical aid to other developing countries, and right now the vaccine timeline for a lot of poor African countries is really, really bad. If this pans out, it could save a lot of lives. Does Cuba have the capacity to produce enough vaccines for those nations? That would be really surpising to me
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  They'll probably be more likely to share enough technical know how that production elsewhere is possible.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  I don't know the answer to that question, but since this is a protein vaccine it should at least be much easier to manufacture at scale.
- jonas_kgomo 5y ago
  Cuba is also known to train African doctors and return them back to Africa. They also helped South Africa during the apartheid regime
  - kortilla 5y ago
    That has no relation to vaccine production at all.

Despegar 5y ago

Cuba actually has 5 vaccine candidates, and 2 of them have greater than 90% effectiveness. A great showing for a small, socialist island nation under decades of embargo by hostile anti-communist forces. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Soberana-02-COVID-19-Vaccine-To-Reach-95-Efficiency-20210625-0005.html https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cubas-Soberana-02-COVID-...

nextstep 5y ago
But also not surprising because despite the decades of restrictions which have limited Cuba’s ability to import medical supplies, they have one of the best medical systems in the world.
- crakenzak 5y ago
  > they have one of the best medical systems in the world. citation needed
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    I believe the quality and breadth of Cuba's medical system rises to the level of conventional wisdom[1][2]. Edit: I forgot to link statistics for the country itself, not just the doctors they send abroad. They perform admirably against both the U.S. and most European countries[3]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism [2]: https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/ https://time.com/5467742/cuba-doctors-export-brazil/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Health_stat...
  - belltaco 5y ago
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    The citation is the first result of any search related to Cuba and medicine on any search engine.

luiscape 5y ago

I see no linked evidence therein; to either clinical trial results or equivalent accredited sources. Sounds like good news, but without any accompanying evidence this is just random click-bait.

perlgeek 5y ago
At least the early news report I have read about the Biontech/Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines didn't have links to the scientific studies either. This seems to be pretty standard for new these days :-( Even if the effectiveness number doesn't pan out to 92%, every working vaccine is another useful tool in the toolbox. I could imagine that many South- and Middle American countries have higher trust in Cuban than in US or European vaccines.

ElViajero 5y ago

> The best proof is the fact that 80% of all of Cuba's vaccines are produced in the country itself, Moya said. He was not surprised by the high efficacy of Abdala, saying it was simply the logical consequence of a health care system that had been performing steadily well for decades. It is impressive that a country like Cuba, subject to a long-lasting USA economic embargo, is able to keep a healthy health care system. More impressive if you compare child mortality (U5M under 5 years old) rates below 5.5 per 1000 live births, only bested in the Americas by Canada. I hope that the vaccine works as expected. To stop new mutations to appear so fast we depend on having as much world population vaccinated as possible.

marcodiego 5y ago
I think that is what happens when there are few opportunities on public services for corruption or exorbitant profit: efficiency soars. Actually "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless.
- ElViajero 5y ago
  > "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless. I agree. In a capitalist country an "exorbitant profit" for a long time is a failure of the system. Why nobody else is producing the same service if there is so much profit to be gain? And, if there is competition, why is not shrinking that margins to compete? Capitalism is great when there are many small competitors that need to push quality up or prices down. If you only have 1 big corporation dominating each market, that's just communism with extra steps. The economy is just a planned economy and no competition nor capitalism is happening.
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    Monopoly is what happens when capitalism is not working right. Of course, that is not the single source of monopoly, but it should not exist when capitalism works correctly. There are probably many people who dream of capitalism as a chance to become a billionaire, not only such a possibility is very small, it actually frequently unfair: you need much more than honest merit to become one. The best part of capitalism is how it is a good system for the buyer and the costumer not for the seller or producer.

boomskats 5y ago

I’ve seen a lot of cynical responses to this. People are quick to forget that Cuba’s healthcare system & medical research are world leading. They have far more physicians per person than any other country in the world [0]. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645168/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bufferoverflow 5y ago
They are not world leading. Number of doctors is not a metric of how good your medicine is. If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US.
- joejohnson 5y ago
  >> If you look at most good and great novel drugs and madical devices, they mostly are designed and made in the US or Europe. Mostly US. Citation needed!
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    The US is so far ahead of other countries, it invents more new novel drugs than the next 5 countries combined. And then poor countries enjoy the cheap generic versions of these drugs, basically subsidized by the US. https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee48ab185b97a https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-1a70c72f3bbb329d1dfee4...
    - onli 5y ago
      The US is incapable of making medications accessible to its own population. And not even willing to provide broad health insurance. That's not a country with a working or high quality medical system. Does the chart you link say anything about generic versions?

kube-system 5y ago

This is good news regardless, but I wish these articles had more detail. Some number of "% effective against COVID-19" is not meaningful on its own. Effective at doing what, exactly? Preventing symptoms? Preventing transmission? Preventing death? Comparisons between different vaccines aren't at all meaningful without this context, and I hope the authors realize this, despite not mentioning it.

vidoc 5y ago
> Effective at doing what, exactly? I think at this point all the 'efficacy' numbers given by drug companies for the various vaccines on the market are: relative risk reduction of hospitalization or death. Not uninteresting per se, but would be even more interesting if paired with the absolute risk number [1]. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996517/
- ec109685 5y ago
  Absolute risk will ebb and flow with the abundance of the virus in a population, so it wouldn’t be useful as a comparison or as a predictor for the future since every trial will be different.
- perlgeek 5y ago
  There are basically 4 effectiveness numbers, based on whether you measure: * positive PCR tests * showing symptoms * hospitalization * death I share kube-system's frustration with the media glossing over those details quite often. Here in Germany, there were numbers thrown around such as the mRNA vaccines being 90%+ effective, and the AstraZeneca being only in 60ies or 70ies (which was likely based on PCR tests). Which made many Germans hesitant to get that vaccine. Turns out, AstraZeneca prevents hospitalization at a roughly 90% effectiveness rate (recent numbers from England, don#t have link ready right now), which sound much better than 65% number.
  - baix777 5y ago
    A recent study put the Pfizer vaccine at a 97% hospitalization prevention rate, which is much better than the AZ one. How comparable all these studies is a good question. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/real-world-studies-detail-high-pfizer-covid-vaccine-protection https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/real-wor...

baybal2 5y ago

Why is this something to be surprised of? Antiviral vaccines, let alone inactivated ones are sixties-seventies era biotechnology. Any country with any much substantial industry can make one in 18 months, let alone during national crisis, and an emergency law, unless its government can't even tie its own shoelaces.

ncann 5y ago
You made it sound like child's play, and yet how many countries have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine and use it for their own people? And under US embargo no less, that's actually the most impressive part.
- acituan 5y ago
  > yet how many countries have been able to produce their own COVID vaccine and use it for their own people? One of the best things about international economy is that not every country needs to invest in their own $anything if they can import it from the best, especially for cheaper. Therefore it is wrong to equivocate the number of countries that has developed their own vaccines with the number of countries that can develop them. Cube, seems like, developed it because they had no choice, not as a tour de force of their medical know-how.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    I believe one does not rely on international trade during a global pandemic.
    - simfree 5y ago
      If anything international trade dependency robbed Canada and many other nations of the ability to develop a vaccine and vaccinate their population in a timely manner. Only those nations with capable vaccine development and manufacturing capabilities were able to first or second in line to vaccinate their population.

dj_gitmo 5y ago

Having domestic vaccine development and production capabilities probably didn't seem that important to a lot of countries until recently. I bet a lot of countries are going to try and developer their own capabilities as a result of this crisis.

atatatat 5y ago
Point them to SciHub!

pmoleri 5y ago

This is a great example. It's incredible than in all latin america no other country has developed a vaccine, having huge countries like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Brazil partnered with a lab in China. Their govt made a lot of mistakes, but this doesn't seem to be one of them.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  > Their govt made a lot of mistakes, but this doesn't seem to be one of them. The FEDERAL government did made this mistake. Repeatedly: https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/veja-10-vezes-em-que-bolsonaro-criticou-coronavac-24843568 https://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/veja-10-vezes-em-que-bolsona...
  - zanellato19 5y ago
    We do have a few vaccines in development here, but the federal government seems to want to block them all. There is ButanVac, there is one in development in UFPR and I'm sure there are others. Sadly, our federal government is beyond terrible right now, but I imagine we could have developed one of our own already.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  A state government partnered with China. The president criticised the vaccine that came from the partnership because the governor is his political rival.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    I see, thanks.
fernandezpablo 5y ago
Can't believe people is so eager to believe in this without any real scientific publication of vaccine efficacy. Cuba lacks things so common as soap, to the point that you can bribe police officers or even pay sex workers with a tiny hotel soap bar or shampoo flask.

tchalla 5y ago

> "The CIGB Research Institute has 30 years of experience in vaccine research. I trust the results that have been published. These are serious studies, with the participation of researchers and institutions committed to science," Moya said. We at least have one expert epidemiologist vouching for the results.

coredog64 5y ago
Perhaps a false equivalency, but how many epidemiologists were on Twitter and elsewhere in 2020 strongly contesting the lab leak theory?
- Yoric 5y ago
  Note that this lab leak theory is, at the current stage, still a theory. At best, time will tell whether it was true.

streamofdigits 5y ago

The fact that it is a different type of vaccine seems quite significant

peter_retief 5y ago

Silly propoganda, it is unbelievable people still fall for this nonsense. I had a laugh reading the old tired revolotutionary rhetoric.

superkuh 5y ago

Excellent news but there's a translation error or misunderstanding in this article. > The scientists are using yeast as a receptor-binding domain. I think they must mean they're using yeast as the protein expression medium and encode the receptor binding domain of the spike protein (along with the rest of the spike?) with yeast-y promoters and base sequence preferences. I guess there's nothing on the spike protein that needs to be glycosylated so non-mammal cell culture works.

noveltyaccount 5y ago
I was reading about the mRNA approach recently and wondered why not just inject the spike protein itself? Why have our body make the protein instead? Does anyone here know? It's interesting to see that both approaches yield such good results, and the end result, triggering immune response to the spike, seems about the same.
- detaro 5y ago
  That's what the Novavax vaccine does, but it's still in testing and approval stages (although the trials results for now look like it works fine). As far as I understand, part of the problem is finding a way to produce the correct protein efficiently.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > Why have our body make the protein instead? Not so easy to make enough, and handle it just like every isolated biological molecule?
  - danzk 5y ago
    It's expensive and difficult to scale when you're trying to make millions of doses.
- superkuh 5y ago
  It boils down to the mRNA process being faster and more of a sure thing for a novel virus. I hope there are eventually many more effective protein based vaccines approved. The problem with expressing your protein in some animal cell is that often times there are sugars that cells add to proteins and they differ by lifeform type. So the protein will end up shaped different in a yeast than in a animal cell. Additionally, growing in a third party host lifeform often leads to situations where you can't get it to grow in the host anymore because the virus changes.

vanisher93 5y ago

Nah, not really, don’t believe those numbers, I’m from there, I know this is just political BS. Family and friends (some of them fully vaccinated) still struggle with COVID.

lvs 5y ago

It is a 3-dose protein vaccine. [1] "The second of these candidates and the fourth from Cuba uses yeast as a receptor binding domain protein and alumina as an adjuvant." [2] I suspect there is a translation issue here. I would hope this means they are recombinantly expressing some portion of the RBD in yeast, not that they are using yeast as a vector. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-vaccine-abdala.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/world/americas/cuba-vacci... [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4654/rr-6 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4654/rr-6

ericol 5y ago
According to this [1] it's cultivated in yeast: > Su cultivo se realiza en células de levadura, lo que la diferencia de "Soberana 2" "Iit's cultivated in yeats, what differentiates it from 'Soberana 2' " (Another Cuban vaccine) [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-cuba--previsi%C3%B3n-_-abdala---la-segunda-potencial-vacuna-cubana--en-la-recta-final-de-pruebas/46464036 https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/coronavirus-cuba--previsi%C3%B3...

vanisher93 5y ago

Not really, I’m from there and I can totally assure this is just political BS. Family and friends (some of them fully vaccinated) are still struggling with the virus.

ffggvv 5y ago

is this according to their own numbers? if so they likely pulled them out of their ass.

macinjosh 5y ago

Socialism will always be playing catch-up to free markets. See the space race.

lexs 5y ago
Wasn't the USSR first in space? First ICBM , first artificial satellite, first man in space etc?
- moogly 5y ago
  They had all the firsts expect for the last one, which someone decided was the only one that counted.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Also first interplanetary landing and first space station. To this day the cheapest and most effective way to send humans to LEO is still Soviet.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. It's tedious, nasty, and the last thing we want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zepearl 5y ago

> The Cuban vaccine is neither a vector vaccine nor does it work with mRNA technology. Instead, it's a so-called protein vaccine. + > That means it carries a portion of the spike protein that the virus uses to bind to human cells. It docks onto the receptors of the virus' own spike protein, thus triggering an immune reaction. "thus triggering an immune reaction" because...? (genuinely asking - I know nothing about vaccines)

deviation 5y ago
A vaccine is effective by triggering a small immune reaction within your body. They are essentially very small amounts of X virus, so that your body can trample it and build an immunity to the real thing.
- officialjunk 5y ago
  ...very small _pieces_ of X virus...
- selcuka 5y ago
  I think the question the OP was trying to ask can be rephrased as "why does a random piece of protein trigger an immune response?"
  - XorNot 5y ago
    I mean the short version is "everything does". The human immune system is psychotic to the point that we have organs it has to be kept isolated from or it will destroy them.
    - HKH2 5y ago
      That's immune privilege, right? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_privilege https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_privilege
pas 5y ago
Because foreign proteins are immunogenic. https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-research-projects/immunogenicity-protein-based-therapeutics https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-resea...

ericol 5y ago

There are a few comments / questions about yeast in the cooments. According to this [1], quoting: Abdala, basado en la formulación de la proteína RBD (Dominio de Unión al Receptor) recombinante adyuvado en hidróxido de aluminio, emplea la proteína que se expresa en la levadura Pichia pastori, con un diseño que utiliza el RBD ACE 2, es decir, es el motivo que une al receptor y a través del cual el virus penetra a la célula e infecta al individuo. Abdala, based in the formulation of the RDB protein (receptor binding domain) adjuvanted* recombinant* in aluminum hydroxide, employs / uses the protein that expresses in Pichia Pastori yeast, with a design that uses the RDB AC 2, meaning, is the motiv that unites the receptor and thru wich the virus penetrates the cell and infects the subject. * & * I don't even know what these words mean in Spanish. I used G Translate for these 2 (I'm obviously way out of my pay grade here) [1] https://instituciones.sld.cu/hospmiguelenriquez/2021/04/22/informacion-acerca-de-los-cinco-candidatos-vacunales-desarrollados-en-cuba/ https://instituciones.sld.cu/hospmiguelenriquez/2021/04/22/i...

maxerickson 5y ago
I expect the protein is being described as recombinant (the yeast has been altered to produce it) and the vaccine is adjuvanted with the aluminum hydroxide.

gosukiwi 5y ago

I have absolutely no idea about biology, vaccines and stuff, but don't vaccines need like a shitload of testing? That was the reason the Russian vaccine wasn't accepted by the European Union for quite some time AFAIK. Now Cuba has a vaccine and is already giving it to their citizens. Are they guinnea pigs? Latin America being Latin America, if the Cuban vaccine works, other Latin American countries will most likely import it or manufacture it locally and apply it to their citizens, disregarding if it's properly tested or not. Because politics. Argentina is trying to mix second doses because it ran out of Sputnik (while there are some studies about mixing some vaccines, the government wants to mix two non-tested vaccines). And being the totalitarian government than it is, they will probably end up mixing it.

rbanffy 5y ago
Argentina doesn’t have a totalitarian government.
- gosukiwi 5y ago
  Then we agree to disagree :) I live in Argentina and we have very little freedom. The economic freedom is basically non-existant (can't buy foreign currency), and [private property is violated](https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/o6zfxq/usurpaci%C3%B3n_de_terrenos_en_reconquista_santa_fe/ https://www.reddit.com/r/argentina/comments/o6zfxq/usurpaci%...) by the government to buy votes.
  - greendude29 5y ago
    Then you don't know what a totalitarian government is, you can disagree all you want :) Also mixing and matching is not as horrible a thing as you make it sound. Canada is doing it too for the second. Given that a largely white country is also doing it, does that now make you feel better about it?
    - senkora 5y ago
      Argentina is a largely white country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Argentina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_of_Argentina I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there.

a0-prw 5y ago

Cuba has in general an outstanding health care system: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cuba-has-eliminated-mother-child-transmission-hiv-and-syphilis/ https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cuba-has-elim...

JordasFriend 5y ago

This conversation is gold! The logic behind some of these arguments are just flawless. I am pretty sure at this time I am wasting my time but hey, if I can convince one if you guys claiming that Cuba is great, is a world leader, has great healthcare and any other mumbo jumbo you all have been talking out here maybe I will gain something. Couple of things I would like to bring up: 1) Any data coming from the Cuban government has been corrupted. This data is no different from North Korea data. It is communist propaganda. I know is hard for many of you to understand, but people will lie. 2) Cuba is not a world leader in anything. Put all articles aside, put all random statistics aside. Think about it in a commonsense point of view. When was the last time you held a product designed in Cuba, manufactured in Cuba? Invented in Cuba? I drive a car designed in Japan, assembled in Mexico, with tires from Tupelo. I flight a plane with parts from Switzerland, Argentina, France, UK, etc. But I have never held a product from Cuba besides some arts and craft or some dumb cigar. 3) Cubans doctors are the best and are highest per capita. Well if you don’t have an Xray machine, MRIs, not even O2 tanks how can you be the best? I mean that is like saying you are the best programmer but never had a computer. And whoever tells me “oh but they have all that”, then are you telling me one of the poorest country in the entire hemisphere has the best medical equipment. This is like parking a lambo in front of a tent. It just does not add up. 4) These ideas of the vaccine, that they have a vaccine is ridiculous. I mean do you even know what it takes to manufacture a vaccine? There is a handful, and I mean you can count it with your hands the number of sites on earth that can manufacture much less design a vaccine and you are saying the poorest people on earth were able to come up not with one but 5 different ones? 5) There are few places on earth where people are willing to sacrifice their life in order to get out of the country. Among those are North Korea, Haiti, Somalia and Cuba. Tell me, according to you, what do all these countries excel at? Absolutely nothing just misery and poverty. Being Cuban myself living in the US and seeing other Cubans on this conversation trying to convince you otherwise. It is shocking to know that with all the resources we have at our disposal in the US somehow you were able to conclude that there is anything good in Cuba. I hope you do further research and be more inquisitive, sometimes you must step back and ask does the peg fit the hole? 5

stackhelga46 5y ago

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