Cuba marks second consecutive day of record number of deaths from Covid-19 (July 15)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Cuba marked a new maximum number of deaths in one day with 67, bringing the number of deaths to 1,726 since March last year when the pandemic began in the Caribbean country.

The previous record number of deaths was reported the day before with 51, according to information released daily by the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap).

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Health authorities reported today 6,479 SARS-Cov-2 positives, bringing the country’s total number of infections to 263,086.

Laboratories processed 45,721 samples to detect the cases of the day, of which 56 were imported.

In hospitals and isolation centers, 66,517 people have been admitted: 41,559 active cases -129 critical and 118 severe-, 17,368 with suspected symptoms, and the rest under epidemiological surveillance.

The complex epidemiological situation in the country was one of the driving factors behind Sunday’s anti-government protests, which have left one dead and hundreds arrested, according to independent civil society organizations.

In at-risk territories, including the capital, a health intervention study is being carried out with Abdala and Soberana 02, the two most advanced of the five vaccine formulas Cuba is developing against the coronavirus.

The first, which showed an efficacy of 92.2% in clinical trials, was authorized for emergency use and is the first Latin American vaccine against the coronavirus.

Soberana 02, on the other hand, is awaiting this authorization after showing 91.2% efficacy with two doses and an extra dose of Soberana Plus, another of the compounds being researched by scientists on the island.

More than one million of the 11.2 million Cubans have received at least one dose of these vaccines as part of the clinical trials and intervention studies carried out in parallel to health care.

Cuba is not part of the W.H.O.’s Covax mechanism created for middle- and low-income countries to access vaccines, nor has it purchased them on the international market.