November 6th, 2009

Yamile Castro Ibarra

Cuban Vice-president of the Council of Ministers José Ramón Fernández underscored that Cuba-US scientific exchange restrictions clearly illustrate the anachronism of the US blockade of the island.

The 2009 Biotechnology Congress opened on Monday in Havana, gathering nearly 500 experts from over 300 countries, including two Nobel laureates. It’s worth noting the scant attendance of American scientists, who were denied travel to Cuba, in contrast to the large number of participants coming from other countries.

Among the personalities attending the Congress International award winners Robert Huber (Chemistry, 1988) and Harald zur Hausen (Physiology and Medicine, 2008). They both gave masterly lectures at the event.

Fernández said Cuba produces 85 percent of the medicines it consumes, which proofs the effectiveness of the biotechnological development program designed by Fidel Castro in the early 1980’s.

Cuba’s biotechnological industry produces eight of the eleven vaccines which are administered to Cubans as part of the immunity national program. "Over the last ten years," Fernandez said, "one of these vaccines has prevented children under five from contracting hepatitis B, considerably reducing the effects of this disease."

He later referred to Heberprot-P, a Cuban medication currently being used on the island and Venezuela to treat severe ulcers in diabetic patients who face the risk of amputation.

In addition, Cuba will soon secure the patent of a liquid pentavalent vaccine which only a handful of companies worldwide produce. It will contribute to improve the people’s quality of life.

Our scientists are also working on a hepatitis C vaccine and a number of cancer therapies, he stated.