Cuba on Friday approved its home-grown Abdala vaccine for emergency use, the first Latin American coronavirus jab to reach this stage and a possible lifeline for a region trying to battle a killer pandemic with modest means. Cuba is working on five coronavirus vaccines, and in May started immunizing its population using two of them -- Abdala and Soberana 2 -- even before they received approval. Brazil has the world’s second-highest death toll -- more than 530,000. Mexico, whose recorded death toll of 234,000 is the fourth-highest in the world, said Tuesday it is battling a fresh pandemic wave. The region comprises a third of the world’s coronavirus death toll despite representing just 8.4 percent of the global population.

Source: The Nation July 09, 2021 20:48 UTC