Communist nation Cuba has developed a revolutionary vaccine to prolong the life of lung cancer sufferers — well before many other developed capitalist nations.

Cuba has reportedly struck a deal to share the CimaVax drug with the United States.

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“With this kind of product, maybe cancer, advanced cancer, can be treated like any other chronic disease like diabetes,” lead researcher Dr Gisela Gonzalez at the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology told CNN.

The vaccine helps patients’ immune systems to fight back more effectively against the lung cancer cells, but does not prevent or cure the disease.

In April, the centre employing Dr Gonzalez and her team agreed to share the drug with the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York, USA.

Cuba has reportedly invested heavily in medical research, especially disease prevention, since the 1980s.

As a result, it has “some of the best and inventive biotech and medical research in the world”, the US magazine Wired has reported.

The life-extending qualities of the Cuban drug is reportedly similar to two other lung cancer vaccines (GVAX and BLP) being developed separately in the US, which invests far more in medical research.