headlines in cuban health

China’s Cancer Patients To Benefit from Cuban Biotech

By MEDICC Review Staff

China’s first monoclonal antibody facility, the result of a technology transfer from Cuba, has begun producing hR3 (TheraCIM), a genetically engineered humanized monoclonal antibody effective for advanced epithelial cancers of the head and neck resistant to chemotherapy. 

TheraCIM was developed by Havana’s Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM), the same institution responsible for a therapeutic lung cancer vaccine (SAI-EGF), now licensed for development and marketing to the California-based CancerVax Corporation (see MEDICC Review online, Headline  U.S. Company Licenses Three Cuban Cancer Vaccines,  Vol. VI, No. 1, 2004).

The September opening of the new plant in Beijing’s industrial development park caps over a year of TheraCIM efficacy trials in China, revealing 70% of the 120 patients enrolled to be fully responsive to treatment, according to Prensa Latina News Agency.  Head and neck cancers account for nearly one third of cancer localizations in China, the agency reports, and the production facility will initially manufacture eight kilograms of the antibody annually, or enough for approximately 10,000 patients.  At full capacity, 62,500 patients could be treated.

Thus far, TheraCIM has been patented in the United States, Canada, China and various European countries, while technology transfer has been negotiated with India as well as China.  In 2002, the product was awarded the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Gold Medal.

Production and marketing of TheraCIM in China is under the auspices of Biotech Pharmaceutical, a joint venture established in 2000 between Chinese companies and CIMAB (CIM’s commercial representative).  Under the original agreement, Cuban specialists transferred technology and production know-how consistent with international norms and regulations. Dr. Patricia Sierra, who leads the Cuban end of the partnership, notes that the new plant also permits production of other monoclonal antibodies and recombinant vaccines, and lays the foundation for joint cancer research. A second joint medical project was inaugurated in late September in China’s Jilin Province, a facility to produce and market Cuban vaccines and recombinant therapeutic proteins developed by Havana’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

Biomedical Engineering Degree Debuts in Cuba

By Gail A. Reed and Julián M. Torres

Three university campuses in Cuba began offering a degree in biomedical engineering this fall, responding to greater national and international demand for graduates in the field.  Biomedical engineers specialize in the design, production, safety and efficient utilization of medical equipment ranging from x-rays, incubators and operating theater accessories, to MRIs, gamma cameras and other imaging equipment. 

Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health recently refurbished over 400 outpatient clinics in the country, installing diagnostic ultrasound and several other technologies for the first time at the community level.  The country’s hemodialysis capabilities have also been increased from 32 to 47 centers distributed throughout the island.  And some 50 Cuban hospitals are now undergoing capital improvements to render them “national centers of excellence,” significantly upgrading services with the purchase of new equipment.

All this, plus the demand for Cuban biomedical experts and teachers for such countries as Venezuela, Guatemala, South Africa and Honduras, put the new field on the academic fast track. For some time, biomedical technicians have been trained in Cuba - where the specialty was studied primarily by electrical engineers in post-graduate programs - and by Cubans abroad.

“In developing countries where Cuban doctors are serving,” notes Dr. Yiliam Jiménez of Cuba’s international Comprehensive Health Program, “they began finding medical equipment of all kinds gathering dust or simply junked for want of expertise to repair it. This is how our collaboration began in the field - by sending Cuban technicians to many of these places, to teach and to train.”

In the case of medical equipment, science has been added to the same resourcefulness born of economic difficulties that keeps 1950s American cars running in Havana today - and Cubans’ results in many countries have convinced governments that biomedical maintenance can save millions of dollars, not to mention lives.  (See MEDICC Review online, International Cooperation Report Ingenuity and Solidarity: A Lifesaving Combination, Vol. VII, No. 1, 2005).

In 2003, Cuban universities initiated a five year Bachelor of Science program in the field, enrolling primarily South African students, according to Dr. Juan J. Ceballos of the Vice Ministry of Health for Medical Education.  The B.S. program, he told MEDICC Review, is designed to allow students to receive a ‘basic-level technician’ diploma after successfully completing two years and a ‘middle-level technician’ diploma after three years, going on to opt for a university degree after the full five years.  Thus, these students can enter the workforce with some level of expertise at points along the way if necessary.

Cuban Medicine Receives International Recognition

By Anna Kovac

A Cuban ophthalmology center, public health educator and virologist garnered awards and worldwide recognition for excellent work recently. The Camilo Cienfuegos International Retinosis Center in Havana received the Ibero-American Quality Award for Excellence during the 15th Summit in Salamanca, Spain, in October. The center has treated over 8,000 patients from 85 countries for a variety of eye afflictions, especially retinitis pigmentosa. In Cuba, there is a retinosis center in each of the 14 provinces that provides care for all patients near their home.

The retinosis therapy Cuban Dr. Orfilio Peláez created and put into practice in the  center in 1992, is considered an effective treatment for this hereditary disease that can lead to total blindness. The groundbreaking treatment combines surgery, ozone therapy, electrostimulation, magnetic therapy and prescription medicines.  A four-year study designed to determine the characteristics of the disease in Cuba that has a prevalence rate of 4.1 per 10,000 inhabitants, affecting 4,123 patients in 2,435 families, is currently underway; it’s slated to end in 2009.

Earlier in Washington, D.C. during the 46th Meeting of  PAHO’s Directing Council, the regional health organization awarded a Cuban, Chilean and Argentine for their work in medicine, teaching or research.

Cuban physician Francisco Rojas Ochoa (see MR Interview Francisco Rojas Ochoa) received the 2005 PAHO award in Health Administration for his “excellent contribution to the training of generations of professionals and public health leaders.”

Dr. Patricia Sorokin from Argentina received the Manuel Velasco-Suárez Award in Bioethics and Chilean Dr. Ricardo Uauy, a top nutrition expert, received the Abraham Horowitz
InterAmerican Health Leadership Award.

Finally, in its 125th anniversary issue, the US magazine Science recognized the work of Cuban research scientist, Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán, head of the Virology Department at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana. The Cuban specialist was among 12 researchers worldwide whose essays were published in the journal.

Science published  Dr. Guzmán’s  study “Deciphering Dengue: the Cuban Experience,” (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/309/5740/1495, Vol 309, September 2, 2005), which details epidemiological, virological and clinical dengue research  in Cuba. Dengue is considered one of the greatest threats to health in the world today, infecting 50 million annually.