Another intervention study in infants is currently being planned to continue protecting Cuban infants from this bacteria, after the recent success in the immunization of infants from one to five years old with the Quimi-VIO vaccine candidate.
“We have been in various areas of the province explaining what pneumococcal disease represents in pediatric age, they are cases of meningitis or septicemia, which are hospitalized in intensive care,” declared Dr. María Eugenia Toledo Romaní, Principal Investigator of the Institute of Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine (IPK).
“Cienfuegos was the clinical setting where the vaccination campaign for children from one to five years old recently concluded, so we can say that in the province up to 10 years old we have more than ninety percent of vaccination coverage who have received the anti- Cuban pneumococcal disease,” said Toledo Romaní.
“But we are left with a population at risk of contracting the disease, which is infants, because it can be transmitted from their siblings or other family members,” he concluded.
The Finlay Vaccine Institute is working on obtaining another vaccine candidate with eleven serotypes, which will protect children from eleven serotypes that cause pneumococcal disease and it is planned to begin an evaluation very soon precisely in the population of Cienfuegos, of children under the age of a year, said the scientist.
The future trial and research protocol are still in the approval phase by the Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED).
The Finlay Vaccine Institute is the leader in Cuba in the development of vaccines, with support in the areas of Research and Development, Production, Clinical Evaluation and Marketing of products and technologies.
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