Havana, June 20 (Prensa Latina) With 17 cases in 2007 and only four this year, Cuba is ready to eradicate Hepatitis B transmission with a highly effective vaccine produced here, reports the national media.
In 1992, when the program to inoculate newborns began, over 2,100 cases where reported, recalled Granma daily.
The results point to the efficiency of the Cuban vaccine and of the immunization strategy that reaches all inhabitants free of charge, the daily stated.
The newspaper reported that one of every 12 people have Hepatitis B or C, while 1.5 million die every year of this liver infection caused by a blood and fluids transmitting the virus.
The highest risk of contracting the disease on the island nowadays is through unprotected intercourse when one of the partners is infected.
Cuba maintains a vaccination model that includes all newborns, students, risk groups like public health-care system employees and patients under dialysis treatment.
Production on a large scale of the Recombinant HB vaccine in the Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología (CIGB) has made possible systematic campaigns to inoculate people under 26 years old against the virus.
The product is marketed in over 40 countries and, since 1992, the CIGB has produced almost 157 million doses to export and over 14 million for the National Vaccination Program of the Ministry of Public Health-Care.
According to the publication, the result lays the foundations of HB dependent Hepatic cancer and cirrhosis eradication in the next three or four decades.
