Nurse Nelly Sánchez Espinosa, an employee of the Maternal and Child Hospital in the municipality of Cabaiguán, in the province of Sancti Spíritus, died this week after complications from her dengue infection.
His death was confirmed by co-workers on social networks, without the local directors of Public Health having offered an official version. Some comments on the publication allow us to reconstruct the circumstances in which Sánchez Espinosa died.
The user Javier Raúl López González offered his condolences for the nurse, whom he described as “one of the essential” of the hospital, and confirmed that the cause of death had been dengue.
For its part, Manuel Rivero Abella, Provincial Director of Health, said in a publication that Sánchez Espinosa had left “her mark” in the delivery room where she worked for three decades, but did not mention the illness that led to her death. The nurse was also part of a Cuban medical brigade in Angola.
The patients who were treated by Sánchez Espinosa also expressed their condolences. “Very professional and affectionate, I have to thank you for helping me so much, in that difficult time that all mothers go through,” wrote Mabileydi Rojas Montes de Oca.
“Nelly was not just any name in that nursing room of the Maternal and Child Hospital, we felt safe, we did not need a gynecologist, she was everything”
“Nelly was not just any name in that nursing room of the Maternal and Child Hospital, we felt safe, we did not need a gynecologist, she was everything,” added user Odalis Suarez.
This is the second health professional to die from dengue this month. On September 9, the physical therapist Elba Rosa Lopez Naples He died in the province of Santiago de Cuba. López Napoles presented complications that it was not possible to treat in time, due to the lack of ambulances in the area.
His sister, Mercedes López Nápoles, denounced at that time that, despite having asked for help through the Integrated System of Medical Emergencies (SIUM). The staff of the provincial hospital told her that there were no ambulances available and that she, too, was not registered as a serious patient.
Cuba is facing a severe dengue outbreak, but the Government has not revealed exact figures of infections, beyond affirming that the Island “is in the context of what is happening in the region,” according to statements by the Deputy Minister of Health Public, Carilda Peña García, released the same day that the death of physiotherapist López Nápoles was confirmed.
The deputy minister did confirm that the Cubans will face to a difficult time in the coming months“the most complex of the disease”, in his words, “because the cycle shows its greatest peaks from the end of October and the beginning of November”.
Meanwhile, the BioCubaFarma business group research continues for a dengue vaccine that can be distributed on the island. The president of the pharmaceutical company, Eduardo Martínez Díaz, acknowledged that the investigation process lasts 10 years due to the complexity of the disease. “Today there really is no effective and safe immunogen,” he said.
In fact, there is an approved vaccine against dengue, with the commercial name of Dengvaxia and manufactured by the French company Sanofi Pasteur, but it is not available in Cuba. This serum is only recommended for people who have already had dengue and is used for the four variants of this disease.
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