Havana/The virosis infected by the mosquito Aedes aegypti They continue to spread in Cuba. In Ciego de Ávila, it is the Oroopouche who has caused the authorities to have issued a health alert last Friday. “During the last weeks there has been a notable increase in febrile cases,” the official press collected.
Dr. José Luis López González, Deputy Director of Epidemiology of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, reported the circulation of Oopopouche in all municipalities, except in January 1.
Given the growth of the cases, the authorities ensure that the antivelectorial actions “remain reinforced”, but return to responsible for the population with the cleaning of courtyards and the management of waste, without giving details about the effectiveness of state fumigation campaigns or on the real availability of resources to face the epidemic.
The authorities say that antivelectorial actions “remain reinforced”
The effect of the rains in recent weeks has favored the expansion of the mosquito that transmits not only the Oroopouche but also dengue and chikungunya. The concern has shot throughout the island, since at the end of September a Epidemiological alert In Cárdenas (Matanzas), with the presence of symptoms in all popular advice.
Since that same province, Dr. Miguel Alejandro Domínguez, doctor and victim of the shortage of reagents at the Cárdenas Territorial Hospital, denounced in his social networks that they had not performed the exams required for the evolution and monitoring of his illness. “A hospital that does not guarantee the basics for the diagnosis and monitoring of dengue is severely failing to its population,” he said on his Facebook page.
A clinical laboratory technician in Holguín, told this newspaper anonymity that is repeated: There are no reagents, PCR kits, or basic supplies. “We don’t have disposable, such as gloves, syringes or needles. And that is the same panorama everywhere, from the polyclinics to hospitals. We practically come only to mark card. There is nothing to work with.”
The Laboratory Holguinera, who also fulfilled internationalist missions in countries in Africa and Latin America, warns: “Official statistics are not reliable. If outside the country we had to ‘inflate’ the data to justify the need to keep Cuban doctors there, imagine what is done within the country to sustain the myth of the ‘medical power'”.
“If outside the country we had to ‘inflate’ the data to justify the need to keep Cuban doctors there, imagine what is done within the country”
Although the official discourse constantly blames the shortage of the sanctions imposed by the United States, this explanation does not address the structural causes that underlie the problem. The lack of transparency in the availability and management of resources, the insufficiency of infrastructure investments and the migration of health personnel are key factors that aggravate the crisis.
The Biocubafarma Business Group, responsible for the 62% supply of the basic medication table on the island, has expanded its exports to 41 countries through mixed companies and cooperation agreements. And that export fever is detrimental to the domestic market.
The export of medical services, the first source of income of the Cuban State, also does not have an improvement in health in the country. For example, in 2022, revenues from human health and social care reached 4,882 million dollars, representing 69% of the total exported services, according to the official figures of the National Office of Statistics and Information. However, the budget for the construction of hotels was four times higher than that invested in agriculture, education and health last year.
“Is dengue not an urgency? Doesn’t a thrombocytopenia or a hemoconcentration that are not detected in time be at risk? It is a total lack of respect for patients and towards medical practice,” said Dr. Guerra in his public complaint. And he concludes: “A hospital that refuses to do the minimum studies required for a potentially deadly disease, is simply breaking their duty. And most unfortunate: all doctors who work there, by accepting and normalizing this situation, become accomplices of this sanitary disaster.”
