Venezuela starts vaccinating children between 2 to 11 years with Cuba’s Soberana 2 vaccine

Venezuela has started vaccinating children between the age group of 2 to 11 years with the Cuban based homegrown COVID-19 vaccine – Soberana 2. Cuba has claimed that its COVID-19 vaccines – Abdala, Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus vaccines have an efficiency greater than 90 per cent. 

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez stated that “In Venezuela, the use of the Soberana 2 vaccine, a Cuban vaccine, has already been authorized to vaccinate children between 2 and 11 years old”. 

He further noted that medical workers had started vaccinating children whose immune systems were compromised. While on the other hand, Venezuelan medical and scientific academies and the pediatric unions have expressed their concern over using the Cuban COVID-19 vaccines, noting that no data related to the efficacy rate has been published in the journals. 

So far, 70 percent of Venezuela’s population has been vaccinated and is expected to vaccinate 90 percent of the population by the end of this year, on the other hand, Pan American Health Organization – (PAHO) officials have noted that just 32% of the population has been inoculated.

According to the statistics, so far, more than 414,000 COVID-19 cases have been reported in Venezuela, taking the lives of over 4,976 individuals. 

During the address, the Vice-President further urged the citizens to come forward and take their jabs of the COVID-19 vaccine.  

Till November 8, 2021, a total of 742,750,155 individuals across the world have received their first jabs of the COVID-19 vaccines, which is around 53.8 per cent of the world’s population. On the other hand, there are a total of 345,485,882 individuals (which is around 25 per cent of the total population) who have received their required amount of doses and are now fully vaccinated against the deadliest outbreak.