The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will provide a loan of 46.7 million euros ($45.25 million) in Cuba for the purchase of protective equipment against the corona virus and the preparation of 200 million vaccines.
The agency will channel the credit given by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the main financier of the governments of Nicaragua and El Salvador, to strengthen the Cuban industry infrastructure in the production of injectable antibiotics, parenteral solutions (serum). ), medicines generics and biosimilars, UNDP said in a statement on Thursday.
With this loan, the economic productivity of the national biopharmaceutical industry is expected to increase with the development of “innovative drugs and modernization of technology” as well as achieving production of 200 million doses of vaccines.
“This operation will, in particular, contribute to the face of the health crisis through the development of vaccines that will reduce the risk of people becoming infected with the Covid-19 virus and will also contribute to the country’s economic reactivation,” said Dante Mossi. he said. Chairman of CABEI, last January, when the bank approved the financing.
A portion of the funds will go to the purchase of diagnostic medical equipment, health supplies and protective materials used by professionals to treat people infected with the coronavirus and other communicable diseases.
CABEI, created in 1960 to finance Central American integration, acknowledged Cuba as an “extra-regional partner” and was the first multilateral organization in the region to include the island among its members after the victory of the 1959 Revolution. became. The organization has not given detailed information. terms of operation, but its loans are usually given under “soft” terms with interest rates of 3-4%.
CABEI, created in 1960, acknowledged Cuba as an “extra-regional partner” and became the region’s first multilateral organization to include the island.
The new resources come at a time when BioCubaPharma is in financial trouble because it has reportedly not been able to collect most of the $200 million from the sale of Sobrana and Abdala vaccines, group president Eduardo Martínez Díaz confirmed. of pharmaceutical business on September 14.
The state-run company spent half of its resources in 2021 to develop a drug against Covid-19, but has not been able to recover the investment from its exports. Although it did not specify which countries it sold its products to, the newspaper published in 2021 that Vietnam had purchased five million doses and batches of Sobrana were sent to Iran, although in that case produced the serum in collaboration with Tehran. went. There were also shipments of more than one million vaccines to Venezuela last January.
According to a document submitted by the Daniel Ortega regime last June, Cuba shipped seven million doses of Sobrana 02 and Abdala in 2021 at a unit cost of $7 for each dose, for a total of $49 million. , when he tried to get a loan of 116 million with the World Bank.
