In the early days of the COVID pandemic, Cuba decided it was going to make its own vaccine – even though vaccine development historically takes years, even decades, to bear fruit.

Cuba was taking a gamble that it could develop a vaccine before the coronavirus swept across the island. It wasn’t just risky from a health perspective. Politically, if the rest of the world got vaccine far earlier than Cuba, it would be a huge blow to the government.

Cuba now has five vaccines in various stages.

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