The health program Brazilian Mais Medical, object of sanctions by the United States, currently has the participation of 2659 Cuban doctors, according to official data.
The Medical Mais was created in 2013 to bring medical assistance to remote areas of the country and peripheral neighborhoods of large cities where health professionals are missing.
Cuban doctors, reason for the sanctions announced by the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, represent 10 % of the 26 414 professionals working in the program.
Or MAIS Doctors, Assim as O PX, will survive with unjustifying attacks of Quem Quer that is. O Program saves lives and and and and so is it matters: to População Brasileira.
We will not curve to be empty, you investigators, ciência e, agora, duas das …
– Alexandre Padilha (@padilhando) August 13, 2025
Almost half of the Cuban doctors, a total of 1064, have revalidated their titles in Brazil and work in the same conditions that local doctors, while 1593 are under the agreement signed with Havana and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
86 % of the doctors of the program are Brazilian and the rest come from 54 other countries around the world.
The most represented countries, after Cuba, are Bolivia, with 188 doctors; Venezuela, with 82; Paraguay (55), Peru (42), Argentina (30), Colombia (27), Ecuador (13), Uruguay (12), and Haiti (12).
In a statement, Rubio described the program as “an inconceivable diplomatic blow” because, according to Washington, he helped violate the sanctions that apply to Cuba and because, according to him, he encourages the exploitation of Cuban doctors.
Cuban government ensures that medical missions will continue despite US sanctions
In addition, the US government revoked the visas of the current secretary of the Ministry of Health, Mozart Sales, and the former official of the Brazilian government Alberto Kleiman, linked to the program.
Brazil’s Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha, condemned the sanctions and described the measure as an “unjustifiable attack” to an initiative that “saves lives.”
Mais Medicals was created in 2013 by the then President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) and, at first, he was mainly nourished by Cuban doctors, hired with the intermediation of the PAHO.
When signing that agreement, it was agreed that Brazil would pay the salary of doctors to the Cuban government, through PAHO, and Havana would be responsible for paying payments to workers, although it retains part of the salary.
USA withdraws visas to international officials for hiring Cuban medical missions
Rubio, who also applied sanctions to other African countries with similar agreements with Cuba, urged countries to “pay doctors directly for their services, not to the slave of the Cuban regime”.
The Mais Medical program had a setback in 2018, after the electoral victory of the leader of the extreme right, Jair Bolsonaro, who equated the hiring of Cubans to slavery.
Due to these statements, the Cuban government ordered the withdrawal of about 8000 doctors from the South American country, although the hiring was resumed after the arrival of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to power, in 2023.
