THEY’VE been enemies since the days of the Cold War. But Cuba is about to share a medical breakthrough with the US that could save countless lives.
USA Today reported that Cuba launched a world-first lung cancer vaccine, Cimavax, back in 2011 and it is about to be assessed by American health authorities as part of the thaw in relations between the two countries.
The relatively cheap vaccine — it costs about US$1 per shot — is provided to people already diagnosed with lung tumours to prevent the cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, which makes treatment significantly more difficult.
America’s Food and Drug Administration will begin clinical trials on Cimavax soon, as part of an agreement between Cuba’s Centro de Inmunologia Molecular and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York.
“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” Roswell Park CEO Candace Johnson told Wired.
The vaccine, which is provided free to lung cancer patients in Cuba, is renowned for showing little toxicity, the site reported.
In December the United States announced it would move to renew ties with Cuba, after 55 years of frosty relations and a trade embargo that Cuba says has cost it more than $100 billion.
US President Barack Obama has used executive authority to relax parts of the existing embargo, including restrictions on travel and on sending money to the island.
He has urged Congress to lift the full embargo, in place since 1962, but, with both houses controlled by his Republican opponents, he faces an uphill political battle.
French President Francois Hollande visited Havana this week — the first French President to do so — signalling the European Union’s own interest in normalising relations with Caribbean state.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he “wouldn’t rule out” a visit by Obama to Havana over the course of the next year.
source:news.com.au
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