In severe cases of degenerative aortic stenosis—or what is the same, the narrowing of the valve in the large blood vessel that originates from the heart (aorta) and does not allow the valve to open completely, which reduces blood supply and makes it much harder for the heart to function—the option is to operate for the purpose of repairing or replacing the valve.

The heart of patients with this condition can weaken and cause chest pain, fatigue, and shortness of breath; and also, stop beating.

Dr. Leonardo López Ferrero, interventional cardiologist and head of the ICCC’s Cardiology and Hemodynamics service, knows this. He is in charge of the team of specialists who this Monday implanted the first minimal access percutaneous aortic valve in Cuba.

The procedure, novel in the country and performed on two patients, places Cuban interventional cardiology in a valuable line of development for the treatment and quality of life of people with this condition, and who cannot be beneficiaries of conventional surgery.

Why is it a beneficial procedure?

According to the specialized literature, degenerative aortic stenosis has an estimated prevalence of between 4% and 7% in the population over 65 years of age. Around 30% of cases do not undergo surgery, due to contraindications to surgical treatment and associated comorbidities. Meanwhile, the global mortality of patients with this condition is 50% to 60%, between the first two and three years after diagnosis, if no intervention is performed.

Through two femoral arteries and a radial artery, the entire minimally invasive procedure is performed, Dr. López Ferrero highlighted.

“Greater advantages for the patient’s recovery, a less aggressive approach, a shorter hospital stay and the possibility of returning more quickly to family and work life, are some of the benefits it offers,” he said.

The interventional cardiologist explained that the two valves that were implanted today are percutaneous, that is, they are transported in a catheter to the aortic valve, a catheter is taken to the narrow aortic valve and the new valve (from bovine pericardium) that is assembled over a stent replaces the patient without the need for open surgery.

For López Ferrero, introducing this new technique in interventional cardiology in the country has a great impact: “In Cuba, more than 30% of our population is already over 75 years old and this is a disease that appears in advanced ages of life,” he specified.

The donation of the devices by the European company Iberhospitex S.A. and coming from India, allowed this very expensive intervention to be carried out, the specialist pointed out.

“These valves are priced at around 20,000 euros and, if you add the necessary equipment and consumables, the cost can rise to 60,000 euros,” he said.

According to the expert, the placement of these devices is the first step for the gradual start of a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) program, for which the ICCC is committed, although the institution has For many years, he has operated patients of this type and performed surgical replacement of the valve, by conventional approach.

It would benefit people who meet the established criteria (electrocardiographic, echocardiographic, angiographic and tomographic established and who have cardiac surgery contraindicated due to the high risk it entails).

Dr. Carmen Rosa Martínez Fernández, director of the Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, stressed to the press that the medical act goes beyond performing a procedure, since it is part of a practical training workshop that follows the continuous training received by cardiologists center interventionists, and that can be extended to professionals from the rest of the country.

A multidisciplinary team made up of cardiologists from the Institute and the William Soler Cardiocenter, cardiovascular surgeons, sonographers, imaging specialists, anesthesiology specialists and nursing staff, were present at the intervention, which was accompanied by the Spanish doctor Ignacio Amat Santos, head of Hemodynamics and Interventional Cardiology at the University Clinical Hospital of Valladolid.

Martínez Fernández pointed out that Dr. López, head of the institute’s Cardiology and Hemodynamics service, has been trained in Barcelona hospitals on several occasions to perform this procedure. The presence here of Spanish teachers today is also part of a continuous process of training and collaboration.

“The Cuban population is aging and there is a degeneration of the aortic valve as a result of this demographic phenomenon,” said the specialist who insisted on the advantages of the patient’s quality of life.

“Relatives and patients have given informed consent for this to be done with a high degree of gratitude, convinced that it is a developmental step for the better,” she added.

This is also the opinion of Professor Pedro Nodal, head of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Surgical Unit of the ICCC and Dr. Luis Leonel Martínez Clavel, anesthesiologist in charge of the new procedure.

“This is the first time we are going to do it here. We chose general anesthesia as a protocol because it is the safest way for the patient and also for us to be able to provide that security. Despite the fact that other techniques are performed in the world, even with local anesthesia and sedation, we cannot run before crawling”, explains Martínez Clavel.

Professor Nodal ratifies it, all the support in surgery, anesthesiology, perfusionists in charge of operating the extracorporeal circulation machine is guaranteed to assume any eventuality.

The Spanish doctor Ignacio Amat Santos, head of Hemodynamics and Interventional Cardiology at the University Clinical Hospital of Valladolid, expresses his satisfaction “for carrying out, together with my colleagues from the Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery, the first minimally invasive aortic prosthesis implant interventions, without the need to open patients, only aided by a small catheter”, he said.

He explained that these valves were developed in the early 2000s. “Some patients had complications from such a major procedure as opening the chest to change a heart valve. So an attempt was made to develop something less aggressive, that the patient tolerated better, that they could go home earlier, that they would recover faster. And the implantation of a valve inside a stent was developed that folds and is inserted through a very fine tube from the groin to the heart, and then inside the diseased valve and correct its malfunction, ”he pointed out.

Amat Santos pointed out that, although the initial experiences were complex, enough experience has already been acquired to generalize its use little by little in the population “and we are working on developing this technique in Havana.”

In Spain, he said, between 4,000 and 5,000 procedures are performed annually in various hospitals. Some countries like Germany or the United States have carried out many interventions of this type and already number in the hundreds of thousands.

But, he added, it was only two years ago that research showed that in patients at low risk for open surgery that option was better. “This means that we have to try to generalize it to all patients who need an intervention of this type in the heart,” he pointed out.

On the socialization of science and medical advances, the Spanish expert believed that it is fundamental, while the entire learning curve that has taken place over the last two decades, since this therapy began with the first patients, is shared. the most complex.

Added to this is the importance of professionals being trained and specialized, “because technology is essential but skill is something that must be learned,” he said, and highlighted the link that has been established with Cuba in this regard.

“I am convinced that the center will soon be performing these interventions almost routinely,” said the specialist.

The first step has already been taken, and two Cubans —one from Havana and the other from Mayabeque— are now evolving stable and satisfactorily, with the hope of returning to a full life a little closer.

(By: Lisandra Farinas Acosta/Cubadebate)

According to Roscosmos, the 3 Gonets-M satellites and the Skif-2 satellite are already in orbit.

The space agency Roscosmos specified that this is the first launch of a carrier rocket of the Soyuz-2 group, loaded with a new ecological fuel called naphthyl. It is a hydrocarbon-based fuel with polymer additives that will increase the payload carried into space and reduce harmful emissions.

Likewise, the Skif-D demonstration satellite is designed to work on new technical solutions for high-speed Internet access and the protection of the orbital frequency resource. Meanwhile, the Gonets-M satellites serve to organize mobile satellite communication, collect and transmit data from industrial and ecological monitoring sensors, as well as determine the location of moving objects.

The Sfera program is a global multifunctional communication system, announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018. It involves the launch of hundreds of communications and remote sensing satellites. Thus, within the framework of the project, 5 fleets of satellites will be launched that will provide telecommunications services, and another 5 that will provide surveillance services.

By 2030, 638 satellites are expected to be launched into orbit, including 334 communications, 249 remote sensing and 55 navigation.

Roscosmos indicated that the total weight of the four satellites carried by Soyuz-2.1b is equivalent to one ton, reports the Interfax agency.

(Taken from RT in Spanish)

The US Department of Commerce intends to include new regulations, based on the notification letters sent at the beginning of the year to three companies in the North American country: KLA Corp, Lam Research and Applied Materials. Those letters prohibited the sale of equipment to manufacture microcircuits to Chinese companies that produce advanced semiconductors with processes smaller than 14 nanometers.

The new restrictions would also apply to Nvidia and AMD, companies that were also notified in August to stop any sales of their chips used in artificial intelligence to the Russian and Chinese markets. Furthermore, the regulations could even apply to companies trying to challenge the two firms’ dominance of such technology.

A Commerce Department spokesman said the US is “taking a comprehensive approach to implement additional actions to protect its national security and foreign policy interests” as well as prevent China from obtaining applicable US technology in modernization. military.

For its part, from the Chinese Embassy in Washington they criticized the “export control abuses” by the US government, and pointed out that these measures “violate the rules of international trade, harm global growth and harm companies from both countries. ”.

According to the technology expert at the American Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jim Lewis, the US strategy “is to suffocate China” and they have discovered that chips are the “choke point”, since in the Asian giant “They can’t make these things, they can’t make manufacturing equipment” for semiconductors.

The sources quoted by Reuters added that the US government is pressuring its allies to enact similar policies so that their companies cannot sell technology to China either.

More fuel to the fire: the US “would defend Taiwan”
This Sunday, US President Joe Biden stated that his country would defend Taiwan in the event of an alleged military conflict with China, in an interview with the CBS television channel. Beijing regards Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory, and insists that any US negotiations with Taipei that bypass the Chinese central government violate the key principle of its one-China policy.

Although Washington does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan’s independence, it maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity towards the island, reserving the right to maintain special relations with Taipei, which, in its opinion, makes its own decisions.

Tensions around Taiwan were reignited in August due to the visit to Taipei by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

Recently, the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate approved a bill that would expand military aid to Taiwan and thus revives tensions with China today. With this rule, Taipei would receive 4.5 billion dollars in weapons and equipment within four years.

(With information from RT in Spanish)

In undertaking such promising research, neuroscientists sought to better understand the role played by each of the structures of the most complex organ in the human body, how they participate in the work of the brain as a whole, the behavior of neuronal interconnections and other enigmas yet to be revealed, in order to advance in the early diagnosis of neurological and psychiatric disease, to achieve more effective treatments.

To learn about the state of studies on the subject at the international level and what Cuba has done in this field, Granma reached out to Doctor of Science Pedro Valdés Sosa, researcher at the Center for Neurosciences of Cuba, head of the Cuban Brain Mapping Project and director of the China-Cuba Joint Neurotechnology Laboratory created in July 2015 and based in the city of Chengdu.
-What features distinguish brain mapping projects and what are the most relevant findings?
-In brain research today, practically all sciences converge, from molecular biology, genetics, bioinformatics, mathematics, physics and neurosciences in general to psychological and social studies.

The main feature of the global projects is the spatial mapping of the organ in all its aspects, which include, for example, epigenetics, proteomics, blood flow, and electrical and magnetic activity.

Thanks to the vertiginous advance of technology in neuroimaging, it is now possible to make brain maps in three dimensions.
These can vary over time, from one milliseconds to another, or last a lifetime.
Based on the development of another currently prominent branch of science, neuroinformatics, databases are created from neuro-images and other data, the processing and analysis of which have become vital to the work of researchers.

Given that gene and pharmacological therapies cannot completely eliminate the disabling motor effects of cerebrovascular accidents and other events, neurosciences are opening new perspectives to improve the quality of life of persons with these limitations, putting solutions within the reach of medicine that were once conceived only in the realm of science fiction, like the creation of bionic organs, electronic devices capable of inter-acting with the nervous system, etc.
Among the main results of brain mapping projects, which have reached an unprecedented level of detail, is the creation of the most accurate brain map of the motor cortex, linked to movement, by the Allen Institute, in the United States.

Plus, the reconstruction of the brain of a deceased woman, in a computer with a resolution of 20 microns, made by the scientist
Alan Evans of the Montreal Neurological Institute, Canada,
and Katrin Amunts, scientific director of the European Brain Project.

This atlas is known as the Big Brain, which is enriched with data from multiple sources, a project in which Cuba and the Chinese-Cuban Joint Laboratory are actively collaborating.
I must emphasize that the totality of the data obtained by the different brain mapping projects are openly shared, as part of the Open Science movement, accompanied with the Free Software movement. These resources are vital for Public Health and the development of biotechnology.”
-How is the Cuban brain mapping project going?
-Cuba was among the first nations in which scientists conducted a brain mapping project, in the1990s, but only with the use of electro-encephalograms.

We then undertook a second phase in 2004, in which we incorporated magnetic resonance imaging.

In 2019 we became the only nation to have a governmental National Science and Technology Program on the brain.
Our project maintains strong links of exchange and collaboration with the rest of the brain mapping projects currently underway in the world. In certain areas, our work is recognized by the international community in this field.

Some of the relevant contributions include having managed to characterize the cortical thickness and brain connections of the typical Cuban, for an age range of 15 to 60 years of age, information used in the study of patients with epilepsy, language disorders, violent behaviors, schizophrenia and several neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases.”
-What results has the China-Cuba Joint Laboratory of Neurotechnology produced?
-The Laboratory’s research has contributed significantly to global brain mapping projects, and was the subject of more than 60 scientific articles published in impact journals such as Nature

Scientific Data, and most recently in the National Science Review, addressing the effects of covid-19 on the brain, and as part of a collaboration that led to a recent article in Nature.
Under the Laboratory’s guidance, a high-performance computing node was created for the processing of neuroinformatics data from the collaborative project between Cuba, China and Canada, related to the early detection of neurological ailments and the management of brain aging, the establishment of an academic station for Precision Medicine, in which five Academians of Merit from the Cuban Academy of Sciences are participating.”

(Taken from Granma)

By Randy Alonso Falcón, director de Cubadebate

The apprehensions raised in some countries by the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, the US dirty campaign against the Russian Sputnik V and the confirmed refusal of the most powerful nations to let their pharmaceutical companies temporarily release the patents of their antidotes against COVID-19, have further strained the availability of vaccines and deepened the profound differences in the right to life between the powerful and the poor in this world.

Never before has a health emergency struck so many in so many places and in such a short space of time. COVID-19 has already affected more than 120 million people in the world and has caused the death of more than 2.6 million human beings.

Such a universal challenge warranted a global and coordinated response. But once again, in addition to the demands of the UN and the World Health Organization, nationalism, pettiness, the overwhelming power of transnational corporations and every person for themselves, have prevailed.

Vaccines seem to be the only effective barriers against the pandemic. Only a majority immunization of the world’s population could put a stop to the growing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. But neither the pharmaceutical transnationals nor the governments of the rich world have that vocation for collective response and global solidarity.
Who can develop and produce vaccines?

The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry suffers from high concentration and transnationalization. Large companies from developed countries and emerging economies monopolize drug research, production and distribution. Nine of them are among the 100 companies that generate the highest revenues worldwide.

According to Euromonitor Global, the pharmaceutical industry is responsible for almost 4% of global production activity. If it were a country, it would be among the 15 richest economies on the planet. Almost half of the sector’s total sales come from China and the USA, followed by Switzerland, Japan, Germany and France.

The production of vaccines, in particular, concentrates in 4 large firms more than 80% of the market, according to 2019 data: the British GlaxoSmithKline, the American Merck Sharp & Dohme and Pfizer, and the French Sanofi.

That global market generated in 2018 some $37 billion and it is estimated that by 2027 it will exceed 6$4.5 billion.

As is remarkable, underdeveloped nations -which are the vast majority-, have hardly any capacity to develop their own vaccines (Cuba is one of the few honorable exceptions) and no productive capacities of their own. This has left them with little room for maneuver to influence the uneven development of vaccines in the midst of the pandemic.
How have the vaccines against COVID-19 been financed?

Since the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, it has been calling for a concerted and joint solution to the threat. But the wrathful logic of the market dictates the course of our world and what has taken place since then is a frantic race to hit the bull’s eye (immune and financial), in which there has been no shortage of obstacles, pressures and even blackmail.

From the outset, the major powers allied themselves with the major pharmaceutical corporations in order to conveniently manage the discovery of a solution that would allow them to emerge with an advantage from the health and economic crisis ravaging the world.

Governments provided at least $8.6 billion for vaccine development, according to analyst firm Airfinity. The US, EU and UK invested billions in AstraZeneca’s vaccine, developed by Oxford University. Germany invested $445 million in the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech. Moderna’s vaccine was fully funded and co-produced by the U.S. government.

While philanthropic organizations contributed $1.9 billion. Individual personalities such as Bill Gates, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and country music star Dolly Parton made contributions.

Only $3.4 billion has come from the pharma companies’ own investment, part of which has also come from external funding.

Despite the fact that Big Pharma has only provided one third of the funding, who is reaping the economic benefits? Who has set the rules of the game in the distribution of vaccines?
Foul Play

To obtain the vaccine against COVID became, beyond the health interest, a geopolitical objective. Whoever managed to get the vaccine would capitalize on its commoditization and whoever had more financial resources would be able to monopolize more immunizations.

Scandalous was the news of the Trump administration’s maneuver, as early as March 2020, for the German company CureVac -which had begun to research a possible vaccine-, to leave its headquarters in the European country and move to the U.S. in exchange for “large amounts of money”.

As it had also acquired PCR tests, pulmonary ventilators, masks and biosafety equipment, Washington also set out from the beginning to acquire the production and distribution of vaccines.

This was coupled with sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, smear campaigns against Russian and Chinese vaccine candidates in a concerted attempt to shut them out of other markets. Many doubts were cast on the speed of development, quality of clinical trials and effectiveness of the candidates from both nations, especially against Sputnik V from Gamaleya Laboratories.

A nurse prepares a Sputnik V injection at a Moscow clinic. Photo: AFP

After Russia’s leading vaccine was certified by its authorities and sparked interest in several nations, the United States and the European Union have been tripping it up all over the place. The 2020 Annual Report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently revealed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently revealed that the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) used the Office of the Health Attaché in Brazil to persuade the government of that South American country to “reject the Russian COVID-19 vaccine”.

Text subtitled as Combating malign influences in the Americas. Photo Screenshot of HSS annual report

In response to the revelation, Russian presidential spokesman Dimity Peskov stated: “In many countries, the scale of pressure is unprecedented (…) such selfish attempts to force countries to abandon some vaccines lack perspective. We believe that there should be as many doses of vaccines as possible so that all countries, including the poorest, have a chance to stop the pandemic.”

The European Union, for its part, has not yet given the green light to the Russian vaccine for use in its member countries, even though that region has lagged behind the US, Canada, the UK and Israel in vaccine availability, and even though the prestigious health journal The Lancet acknowledged the high efficacy of Sputnik V in a publication.

Beyond such barriers, Russian and Chinese vaccines have been gaining ground in different regions, due to their effectiveness and the global shortage of immunizers. Slovakia even left the European Union fold to acquire 2 million doses of Sputnik V and Hungary, which has also approved the use of the Russian vaccine, acquired doses of the Chinese Sinopharm, which has also not received the green light from the European Medicines Agency.

Health workers in Indonesia unload a shipment of Chinese vaccine Sinovac

Blackmail without anesthesia

The States made the major investment, but BigPharma imposes the conditions and keeps the revenues. The monopoly of a few multinationals in the procurement and production of anti-COVID-19 vaccines gives such companies overwhelming power.

Recent reports show how pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has attempted to impose onerous conditions on Latin American nations to supply them with certain quantities of its injectable.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro showed his displeasure these days at Pfizer’s demands on his government, pointing out that among the conditions set by the consortium is a clause in the purchase contract that exempts it from “all liability” for possible side effects of its immunizer.

“We have been very hard and they have been very hard on us. They won’t change a comma. The government is dealing with this together with Congress and it is being discussed in terms of a relaxation of the law”, said the recently dismissed Brazilian Minister of Health, Army General Eduardo Pazuello.

Argentina, Peru and the Dominican Republic also suffered intense pressure from Pfizer, as shown in an investigation by The Bureau Investigative Journalism.

Pfizer representatives in Buenos Aires demanded indemnification against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse effects after being vaccinated. “We offered to pay for millions of doses upfront, we accepted this international insurance, but the last request was extraordinary: Pfizer demanded that Argentina’s sovereign assets also be part of the legal backing,” an Argentine official confessed. “It was an extreme demand that I had only heard when the foreign debt had to be negotiated, but in that case as in this one, we rejected it immediately.”

The Argentine government believes that Pfizer’s demands were part of a commercial strategy that favored sales to developed countries and not to Latin American countries.

There are several voices that warn that the urgency to have vaccines available for a disease that has left so many dead in the world may have led some governments to accept significant limitations on their responsibilities and demand transparency on the agreements with pharmaceutical companies.

Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law said, “Pharmaceutical companies should not use their power to limit life-saving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries” and noted that liability protection should not be used as “the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of desperate countries with desperate populations”.

Even mighty Europe seems to have felt the pressures. Although EU agreements with vaccine manufacturers are kept with their main clauses secret, the Vaccine Procurement Strategy made public by the European Commission states that “the responsibility for the development and use of the vaccine, including any specific compensation required, will lie with the procuring Member States.”

Excerpt from the contract for the purchase of vaccines from CureVac by the European Commission was disclosed with all essential parts blacked out.
Who will be able to be vaccinated in 2021?

Vaccine production capacities in the world are insufficient to have the necessary doses this year to immunize the world’s population. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) says that the estimated global demand for vaccines in 2021 is between 10 and 14 billion doses.

According to statistics cited by data firm Statista, the United States can produce nearly 4.7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine and India more than 3 billion potential doses. China, previously not a major player in the vaccine export market, has committed to manufacturing more than 1 billion doses.

Great Britain, Russia, Germany and South Korea are also among the established manufacturing centers, but with lower production capacity.

Vacuna Johnson & Johnson. Photo: Reuters.

Given this reality, the inequity and injustice of today’s world are once again evident: the richest countries have purchased most of the vaccines that will be produced in 2021 (even for stockpiling), while poor nations will not have doses to administer even to their most vulnerable segments of the population. More than 100 nations are waiting for the first bulb to arrive.

It is estimated that 90% of the inhabitants of the nearly 70 lowest-income countries will not have the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID-19 this year.

The most powerful nations took advantage of their purchasing power and investments in vaccine development to secure supplies of the coveted antidote.

So far, about 12.7 billion doses of various coronavirus vaccines have been pre-purchased, enough to vaccinate approximately 6.6 billion people (except for Johnson & Johnson’s, all vaccines approved so far require two doses).

More than half of those doses, 4.2 billion insured, with the option to buy another 2.5 billion, have been purchased by wealthy countries that are home to only 1.2 billion people.

Canada has bought enough doses to inoculate every Canadian five times, while the U.S., U.K., EU, EU, Australia, New Zealand and Chile have bought enough to vaccinate their citizens at least twice, although some of the vaccines have not yet been approved.

Israel struck a deal for 10 million doses and a promise of a steady supply from Pfizer in exchange for data on vaccine recipients. According to reports, the country also paid $30 per dose, double the price paid by the EU.

As Irene Bernal, a researcher on access to medicines at the NGO Salud por Derecho, told the newspaper El País last December, “we are seeing that whoever has the money is the one who has the access. We have kept 53% of the vaccines for 14% of the population, the rich. And the companies have a limited production capacity, so when are the doses going to reach the poorest countries?”

Low- and middle-income countries, with 84% of the world’s population, have made deals directly with pharmaceutical companies, but have so far secured only 32% of the supply.

“We are in such a massive crisis,” said Fatima Hassan, founder of the South African Health Justice Initiative. “If even in South Africa we can’t vaccinate half our population soon, I can’t even imagine how Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Namibia and the rest of Africa will cope. If this is going to go on for another three years, we won’t get any kind of continental or global immunity.”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard have asked the U.S. authorities to allow them to acquire part of the tens of millions of AstraZeneca vaccines produced in the United States, which Washington has stockpiled without having approved the use of this drug. Other countries that have already authorized this vaccine are begging to have them.

Mexico, one of the countries with the largest presence of COVID-19, has so far administered some 4.4 million doses using Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Sputnik V vaccines, in a population of more than 128 million inhabitants, which means a low vaccination rate, according to the website www.ourworldindata.org managed by the University of Oxford.

The most current statistics from this observatory show the low proportion and unequal distribution of the number of fully vaccinated people (with all the necessary doses) in the world:

Percentage of population fully vaccinated with required doses by country, March 16, 2021. Graphic: OurWorldinData /Oxford University

According to data collected by Bloomberg, as of Thursday, more than 410 million doses of anti-COVID vaccines have been administered worldwide in some 132 countries. This represents just 2.7% of the world’s population.

It is the Flash 20, a high-precision device created in China with the ability to perform virological PCR tests that medical personnel worldwide have had to resort to due to the pandemic to confirm positive cases of coronavirus.

The machine can detect COVID-19 in a record time of 30 minutes and analyze 4 samples simultaneously. In addition, the Flash 20 is certified by the European Union and Australia, while it has been used for rapid tests at the airport in China.

(Taken from TeleSur )