Re: CUBA ANNOUNCES NEW VACCINE!

eat shit

"Matthew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> While some in this forum demand that Cuba remain wedded to 18th
> century agriculture, Cuba will announce development this Wednesday of
> a critical new vaccine!
>
> Also, I was informed last week by a key official in the Cuban
> hierarchy that Cuba is making "excellent" progress on an AIDS vaccine.
>
> Matthew
>
> Cuba Produces Key Synthetic Vaccine for Children
> Sun Nov 23,10:32 AM ET  Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!
>
>
> By Anthony Boadle
>
> HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban researchers have developed the first
> synthetic vaccine against a bacteria that causes pneumonia and
> meningitis, a breakthrough aimed at lowering the cost of immunizing
> children in poorer countries.
>
> In Yahoo! Health
>
>  Chronic Heartburn
> Need Relief?
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
>
> More from Yahoo! Health:
> .  Check Your Symptoms
> .  How Is It Diagnosed?
> .  Available Treatments
>
>
>
>
> The vaccine protects against haemophilus influenzae type b, a bacteria
> that causes upper respiratory infections, mainly in children up to
> five years of age. The disease is a leading cause of meningitis, an
> infection of the brain and spinal cord coverings that can cause brain
> damage, deafness or death.
>
>
> The research on the new vaccine, which has already been tested and put
> into production in Cuba, will be presented on Wednesday to experts
> from the world over at a biotechnology congress in Havana.
>
>
> This is the first vaccine for humans made with a chemically produced
> antigen, Cuba says. The available, conventional vaccine is made using
> a difficult and more costly process of growing antigens in a bacterial
> culture.
>
>
> "It took us six years," said Dr. Vicente Verez, head of the University
> of Havana's Synthetic Antigens Laboratory.
>
>
> "But what could be more precious for society than to have healthy
> two-month-old babies," he said.
>
>
> Poor nations that depend on multinational pharmaceutical companies for
> the vaccine -- now costing $3 a dose -- will now have a less expensive
> alternative, Verez said.
>
>
> The disease has been almost erased in the United States, the U.S.
> Centers for Disease Control said. But it remains a problem in
> developing countries where the cost of the vaccine has been a barrier
> to widespread immunization.
>
>
> Clinical trials conducted in the central Cuban province of Camaguey,
> first on adult volunteers, then on four-year-old children and finally
> on babies, showed a 99.7 percent success rate in developing the
> required antibodies.
>
>
> The technology for the new vaccine was patented in 1999 by the
> University of Ottawa and the University of Havana. The Canadians
> discovered how to simplify crucial chemical reactions and Cuba applied
> the method on a larger scale, Verez said.
>
>
> Cuba could not afford the conventional vaccine when it appeared a
> decade ago. The Cuban economy was in deep crisis after the collapse of
> its communist ally the Soviet Union. So Cuba turned to its own medical
> and biotechnology industry, one of the most advanced in the Third
> World.
>
>
> Havana has invested millions of dollars in the industry since the
> 1980s, achieving major successes such as the discovery of a
> recombinant vaccine for meningitis B, which has been used in Latin
> American countries and was licensed to GlaxoSmithKline for sale in
> Europe and possibly the United States. It has also developed a
> hepatitis B vaccine that is exported to more than 30 countries.
>
>
> Haemophilus influenzae type B is the main cause of almost half of the
> infections in children under five in the world and kills 500,000
> children a year, mostly in developing countries, according to UNICEF
> (news - web sites).