According to a reporter in Havana, on July 14, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla announced that the Ministry of Health of Belarus has approved the Cimavax vaccine for the treatment of lung cancer, produced by Cuba.
As of now, this is the only pharmaceutical product in the world that utilizes immunotherapy to treat certain types of lung cancer.
Cuban Ambassador to Minsk, Santiago Perez, emphasized that the decision by Belarusian health authorities marks another undeniable achievement for Cuba’s biotechnology sector. Belarus is a country with high and stringent medical standards. It is also the first European nation to approve Cuba’s Soberana vaccine for COVID-19.
Cimavax Vaccine. (Photo: cubamedic.net).
Cimavax is the first patented and officially registered lung cancer vaccine in the world. This formulation does not function as a preventive vaccine in the traditional sense, but rather has the ability to inhibit the growth of existing tumors in the patient’s body.
According to researchers, unlike other lung cancer treatments that attack cancer cells directly, the Cimavax vaccine helps enhance the immune mechanism in patients, aiding in the production of antibodies that block cancer and slow down the progression of cancer cells, thereby prolonging patients’ lives.
Cimavax acts as a lung cancer treatment drug and is referred to as a “therapeutic vaccine.”
The Cimavax vaccine is used in conjunction with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Clinical trials have shown that the drug does not cause side effects (such as shortness of breath, loss of appetite, weight loss), helping to alleviate patients’ pain and potentially extending their lifespan by an average of over 11 months, and in some cases even longer.
This Cuban formulation also has effects in treating brain cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, and cervical cancer. Cuban scientists continue to conduct further research on the therapeutic effects of this drug for cancer treatment.
The Cimavax vaccine was developed by the Molecular Immunology Center of Cuba, garnering worldwide interest and has been tested in the United States, Japan, and several European countries. U.S. regulatory agencies have proposed the use of this vaccine for the most severely ill patients.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), lung cancer is the most common and dangerous type of cancer, causing 1.4 million deaths worldwide each year. Although current treatment methods can improve survival rates for cancer patients when detected early, the five-year survival rate for patients with late-stage lung cancer is less than 1%.
