In Cuba, most children 2 and up are vaccinated against Covid-19
“In my opinion, we’re the only country that really performed a mass national mass vaccination campaign for children,” the director of Cuba's vaccine institute says.
March 2, 2022, 7:49 AM CST
By Ed Augustin
HAVANA — At around 4 p.m. most weekdays, children in red and white uniforms are walking home from school alongside their families. Almost all of them — along with their siblings over age 2 — are vaccinated against Covid-19.
Two years into the pandemic, Cuba has notched up a series of firsts.
Cuba is the only country currently vaccinating the majority of children as young as 2, inoculating them with its own Covid-19 vaccines, the smallest country in the world to have developed its own. Along with Chile, Cuba has the Americas' highest vaccination rate, with 94 percent of people having received at least one dose.
“It’s a terrible dichotomy,” said Helen Yaffe, a Cuba expert and lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. “Cubans themselves are acutely aware, on the one hand, that they are the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean to have produced a Covid-19 vaccine. And at the same time, Cubans are struggling to get antibiotics, paracetamol and diabetes drugs.” (Paracetamol is known as acetaminophen in the U.S.)
The island started vaccinating its pediatric population in September. Out of cash and wrestling with its biggest economic crisis in three decades, the island had to rely on donations of millions of syringes from groups in the U.S. But by the end of last year, doctors and nurses had fully vaccinated 95 percent of children ages 2-18.
More:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cuba-children-2-are-vaccinated-covid-19-rcna18147
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