Cuba and China Debut Joint Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate

Cuban state media recently announced the debut of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine candidate developed jointly with China’s government, the independent Cuban news site 14 y Medio reported over the weekend.

“As a result of the collaboration in the biotechnological sector between China and Cuba, the first patent for the Pan-Corona vaccine was recently presented at the National Intellectual Property Office of China,” Eduardo Martínez Díaz, the president of the state-run BioCubaFarma Business Group, wrote in a Twitter statement June 1.

Fruto de la colaboración entre China y Cuba, en el sector biotecnológico, se presentó recientemente en la Oficina Nacional de la Propiedad Intelectual de China la primera patente de la vacuna Pancorona. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/f2Cl2l8Toh

— Eduardo Martínez Díaz (@EdMartBCF) June 2, 2022

“These joint investigations have the purpose of achieving effective vaccines against coronaviruses, and would not only have value in the current pandemic, but could also be effective against the appearance of new pathogens belonging to this family of viruses,” he noted.

Granma, which is the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee, reported on the development of “Pan-Corona” on June 2.

The vaccine candidate’s research and development center is located in southern China’s Yongzhou city. The headquarters has been jointly operated since 2019 by staff from two Cuban state-run health facilities: the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and BioCubaFarma.

China’s government requested Cuba’s collaboration to develop “Pan-Corona,” CIGB Director Dr. Gerardo Guillén Nieto said in recent days. Although the vaccine candidate has yet to receive approval from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment has already approved Pan-Corona for domestic use, according to Nieto.

“Pan-Corona is a recombinant-type antigen, which is the vaccine development platform in which the CIGB has the most experience, with successful antecedents such as that of hepatitis B, in addition to two of the Cuban vaccines [candidates] against covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus],” according to Granma.

“The initiative focuses on coronaviruses, not only due to the global crisis caused by SARS-COV-2, but also taking into account that this family of viruses is one of the most likely to jump from animals to humans (a phenomenon called zoonosis), with antecedents such as mers in the Middle East or SARS-COV-1 [sic],” the state-run newspaper noted.

“SARS-CoV-2” is the type of coronavirus that causes the disease known as “COVID-19,” alternatively known as the Chinese coronavirus.

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) announced “SARS-CoV-2,” which stands for “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2,” as the name of the virus on February 11, 2020.

“This name was chosen because the virus is genetically related to the coronavirus responsible for the SARS outbreak of 2003. While related, the two viruses are different,” the W.H.O. notes on its website.