Cuba Says Iran to Start Producing One of its COVID-19 Vaccines

A nurse shows a dose of the Soberana-2 COVID-19 vaccine to be used in a volunteer as part of Phase III trials of the experimental Cuban vaccine candidate in Havana, Cuba. Reuters file photo
A nurse shows a dose of the Soberana-2 COVID-19 vaccine to be used in a volunteer as part of Phase III trials of the experimental Cuban vaccine candidate in Havana, Cuba. Reuters file photo
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Cuba Says Iran to Start Producing One of its COVID-19 Vaccines

A nurse shows a dose of the Soberana-2 COVID-19 vaccine to be used in a volunteer as part of Phase III trials of the experimental Cuban vaccine candidate in Havana, Cuba. Reuters file photo
A nurse shows a dose of the Soberana-2 COVID-19 vaccine to be used in a volunteer as part of Phase III trials of the experimental Cuban vaccine candidate in Havana, Cuba. Reuters file photo

Iran will next week become the first country outside of Cuba to start producing one of the Communist-run island's homegrown COVID-19 vaccines on an industrial scale, Cuban state-run media said on Wednesday.

The allies are under fierce US sanctions that they say have long encumbered access to medicines and medical inputs, motivating them to be self-reliant. Both have produced a raft of experimental COVID-19 vaccines, some with patriotic names like Cuba's Soberana 2 - or Sovereign 2.

Preliminary Cuban data from late-phase clinical trials suggests Soberana 2 and its other most advanced COVID-19 vaccine Abdala are among the world's most efficient, with more than 90% efficacy, although critics say they will remain skeptical until it publishes the figures in international, peer-reviewed journals.

Iran's Pasteur Institute agreed earlier this year to collaborate with Cuba's Finlay Institute, which developed Soberana 2, to implement phase three clinical trials of the shot in the Islamic Republic, leading to its approval for emergency use early in July.

Iran and Cuba will produce millions of doses of Soberana 2 in the Middle Eastern country under the name PastuCovac, Finlay Institute chief Vicente Vérez Bencomo said during a visit to Tehran this week, according to Cuban state-run media on Wednesday.

"Usually you need 15 years to develop a vaccine from zero to the industrialization phase but we did all the steps in a year," he was quoted as saying, "and the evidence is that it works very well,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

Cuba's biotech sector has a long history of vaccine development, producing 80% of vaccines used in the Caribbean island nation and exporting some of them.

Mexico, Vietnam, Argentina and Jamaica are among the countries that have expressed an interest in producing or buying its COVID-19 vaccines.



Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala Released from Iran and Returning Home

This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
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Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala Released from Iran and Returning Home

This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)

An Italian journalist detained in Iran since Dec. 19 and whose fate became intertwined with that of an Iranian engineer wanted by the United States was freed Wednesday and is heading home, Italian officials announced.

A plane carrying Cecilia Sala took off from Tehran after “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Premier Giorgia Meloni’s office said, adding that Meloni had informed Sala's parents of the news.

There was no immediate word from the Iranian government on the journalist’s release.

Sala, a 29-year-old reporter for the Il Foglio daily, was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, three days after she arrived on a journalist visa. She was accused of violating the laws of the country, the official IRNA news agency said.

Italian commentators had speculated that Iran was holding Sala as a bargaining chip to ensure the release of Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport three days before on Dec. 16, on a US warrant.

The US Justice Department accused him and another Iranian of supplying the drone technology to Iran that was used in a January 2024 attack on a US outpost near the Syrian-Jordanian border that killed three American troops.

He remains in detention in Italy.