Cuba sends doctors around the world – not only in times of Corona

Amid the Corona crisis, groups of Cuban medical doctors landed in Italy and Andorra to offer scientific guidance to Europe. However, this isn’t always the primary time that the island country has proven unity this way. Medical cooperation with different international locations has long been one of the concepts of the Cuban fitness machine: movements of unity from which we will research.

In 1998, while hurricanes in Central America and the Caribbean killed lots of human beings and left tens of thousands and thousands homeless, Cuba despatched scientific useful resources to five international locations withinside the region. At the identical time, then President Fidel Castro introduced the outlet of a scientific university for the loose schooling of college students from growing international locations. Today, the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina in Havana trains greater than 10,000 college students from a minimum of 27 international locations.

The 6-yr education is characterized now no longer most effective through coaching theoretical content, however especially through its robust courting to exercise. Those who have a look at medication in Cuba do now no longer accomplish the most effective to pay attention to healing. The ELAM stands for unity among Cuba and different international locations. Its project is to make sure simple hospital treatment and to help withinside the sustainable improvement of scientific exercise in numerous areas of the world.

-Cuban Doctors assist wherein others to do now no longer:

According to the Cuban Ministry of Health, there were over 600,000 missions to 164 international locations on account that 1963. Currently, around 30,000 professionals are operating in a number of the poorest and maximum medically underserved regions of the world. Most of them are in Latin America and Africa. During the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Cuba dispatched greater than 460 medical doctors to the affected areas. The Cuban alleviation project turned into the most important organization of scientific experts despatched at the time. Much greater help turned into needed, however except for Cuba, the little worldwide reaction there has been got here very slowly.

There are infinite examples of Cuban medical doctors on useful resource missions. When cholera broke out in Haiti, Cuba despatched around 1,2 hundred medical doctors and helpers. During the epidemic, this group cared for among 30 and forty percent of all sufferers treated. They have been additionally the primary to be on the web page after the intense earthquakes in Haiti in January 2010. Lorenzo Somarriba, the coordinator of the Cuban useful resource troops, made it clear at the time:

“WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT PUBLIC ATTENTION, WE CARE ABOUT THE PEOPLE”.

-Brazilian and Cuban medical doctors cooperate:

What occurs without the assistance of Cuba has been proven in Brazil. To get a grip on the huge issues of the fitness machine, “mais medicos” turned into based in 2013. The challenge turned into usually supposed to offer simple hospital treatment in poor, rural components of the u. s. a . and for the indigenous population. More than 8,000 Cuban medical doctors have been concerned withinside the challenge.

Cuba needed to terminate its cooperation with Brazil after Brazilian President Bolsonaro strongly criticized the Cuban authorities and the Caribbean u . s. a .’s involvement in “Mais Médicos”. Bolsonaro continuously connected new situations to the whereabouts of Cuban medical doctors. Since then, toddler mortality in indigenous groups has risen sharply. According to information from the Ministry of Health, 530 indigenous toddlers died between January and September of ultimate yr. This represents a boom of 12 percent in comparison to the identical duration in 2018.

-Cuban medical doctors assist in Corona crisis:

Amid the Corona crisis, Cuban medical doctors are over again leaving their domestic u. s. a . to assist. The first useful resource brigades have already arrived in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Grenada, Belize, Suriname, Jamaica, and Angola – and Europe desires assistance too. A 52-robust group has already landed in Italy to guide it withinside the crisis. Another group landed in Andorra. Between France and Spain, this small country is positioned withinside the center of international locations maximum suffering from the pandemic.

Cuba enables in 22 international locations freed from charge
While rich states make contributions to the expenses of those operations, Cuba enables poorer international locations with no economic compensation. For such unity missions and “in popularity of its deserves in handling herbal screw ups and epidemics”, the “Henry Reeve Contingent” has been provided through the World Health Organization (WHO) in May 2017. At the moment, Cuban medical examiners are assisting in 22 international locations freed from charge.

-Criticism from us:

Cuba gives ship assistance to different international locations preventing the coronavirus. However, American State Department warns against accepting such useful resources. On Twitter, it writes: “Cuba is supplying its worldwide scientific missions to the ones suffering from #COVIDー19 simply to make up for the cash it misplaced while international locations stopped taking part withinside the abusive program.” The useful resource people despatched most effectively obtain approximately 20 in keeping with cent of the salaries paid through the host international locations for his or her help. The Cuban authorities have said that its miles maintain a maximum of the foreign places’ wages to finance the island’s loose fitness machine and the unpaid worldwide missions. While the medical examiners in Cuba paint with few sources, their machine is designed to save you from contamination instead of waiting till it’s vital to deal with them.

-USA blocks scientific useful resource shipments to Cuba:

Now Cuban media record that the us is blockading scientific delivery shipments to Cuba. While the u. s. a . is busy seeking to get a grip on the growing variety of human beings inflamed through the Coronavirus, the shipping of Chinese respiration masks, reagents for PCR prognosis, and respirators to Cuba is averted because of current blockade laws. But additionally, the Caribbean island is increasingly suffering from the worldwide corona epidemic. Cuba’s ambassador in Beijing, Miguel Pereira, knows the action is “illegal, unfair and arbitrary”, due to the fact for Cuba “matters are getting increasingly complicated”.

However, now that different international locations’ fitness structures are faltering, a lot of them might be greater than glad to obtain Cuba’s assistance. The island country’s scientific missions ought to store lives again. According to Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Political Research in Washington, those efforts need to genuinely set off American authorities to rethink the nearly 60-yr-antique exchange embargo on Cuba. “The sanctions have a greater standard and lethal effect. They make contributions to a greater standard scarcity of life-saving tablets and devices due to the fact they exacerbate the monetary downturn. This method greater shortages of important scientific materials and greater deaths,” he wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

-Interferon: Cuban drug can be powerful in Covid-19:

Yet it’s miles exactly those medicinal drugs that we ought to urgently need. The Cuban medicine Interferon Alpha 2b is powerful towards viruses with comparable homes to COVID-19. It interferes with virus replication withinside the cells, which may lessen a worsening of the disorder and complications. Since its first use to fight dengue fever, interferon has proven its efficacy and protection withinside the remedy for viral sicknesses which includes hepatitis B and C, shingles, HIV-AIDS, and dengue. Time will inform whether or not it may additionally show to be a miracle therapy for COVID-19.

-What we will research from Cuba:

What is obvious is that the corona pandemic is forcing us to reconsider current structures, mainly in phrases of fitness care and worldwide unity. Cuba’s fitness coverage targets to make worldwide cooperation withinside the fitness quarter and the mobilization of sources easier, pioneering an international fitness machine, now no longer most effective in instances of the Corona crisis.