“There are many environmental risks,” Licks Yosvani Urrutia Castaño, head of Lucha and Anti -Director Surveillance of Mayarí.
Holguin, Cuba. – A growing wave of patients with febrile paintings has lit sanitary alerts in the municipality of Mayarí, Holguín, where the shortage of resources to fight the mosquito Aedes aegypti and a deep citizen distrust in the hospital system are creating a high -risk scenario.
According to A report last Friday of the local radio station Radio Mayarí, the rebound of possible arbovirosis such as dengue threatens to expand in neighborhoods of the health areas of Levisa and the municipal seat, putting in check a population already beaten by multiple shortcomings.
The most critical situation, according to the authorities, is concentrated in the distributions July 26 and Juan George Soto, as well as in Colorado demarcation.
Yosvani Urrutia Castaño, head of fighting and anti -directorial surveillance in the territory, confirmed to the local station the complexity of the panorama, aggravated by the lack of resources to carry out an effective adulthood treatment against the dengue transmitting vector, the chikungunya and the zika.
The current deputy coincides with the rainy season, a factor that, according to Urrutia Castaño, multiplies the presence of mosquitoes. “This is a rainy season in which mosquitoes are increased (…). This type of species [que transmite enfermedades] Not only lives in the tanks; He lives in Lagunas, in puddles, ”he explained.
However, the problem goes beyond the weather. “What worries us? That there are many environmental risks,” Urrutia confessed. “It was already possible to clean the microverteys, but there is no permanence of clean [en las] that other organizations or institutions have to participate. ”
The lack of inter -institutional action leaves vector control equipment fighting a solo battle and with their hands tied. The most alarming factor, however, is the reaction of the community. Distrust in the health system has caused many patients to avoid seeking medical help, which multiplies the risk of complications and causes the sub -registration of cases.
“People do not go to the doctor,” said Urrutia Castaño. “Fifteen feverish cases you have to multiply them by 10. There are 150 people who are in the town, here in our city, in our community, who do not go to the doctor for a simple criteria: ‘No, what are we going to go to the hospital if there is no medicine, nothing?'”
The official recognized the shortage but stressed the importance of timely care. “Sometimes we do not have medications, but when you arrive in a timely manner to the hospital, you can save lives and there are solutions. There is a virus that is circulating, that people arrive at the hospital dehydrated for several reasons and if you do not go to the hospital, you can lose your life in the house and there may be greater evils.”
The situation in Mayarí is not unique. The health crisis extends throughout Cuba. In Matanzas, the situation is also critical of an increase in febrile cases that has put several municipalities on alert.
The director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, Andrés Lamas Acevedo, reported on September 11 to the newspaper Girón that in the province they were circulating “the three and four serotypes” of an arbovirosis that did not identify and that erra “possible” that the serotype two from Havana and Villa Clara would soon be introduced. “The Matancos Municipalities of Martí and Perico are in active transmission of that scourge,” he added.
The most recent official information, published by the newspaper Granmatries to calm the population ensuring that in the territory “no rare or mysterious disease”.
In social networks, the popular feeling is abandonment and despair. “I thought we would fight her, but it was almost impossible when all the neighbors one by one were infected,” wrote Yuneisy Santana González Matancera on Facebook.
Activist Amelia Calzadilla It went further By directly questioning the authorities: “How many critical, serious, convalescent cases or in danger need to accumulate, presidency Cuba, in the Matanzas province before decreeing a state of health emergency? Ask humanitarian aid, hell; it is the life of the people.”
The alarm has spread to other provinces. Cubans They assure That the disease affects communities in Banes, Holguín, and Havana.
In the midst of the crisis, questions about informative management arise. The journalist of Matanzas Yirmara Torres Hernández, former president of the Union of Journalists of Cuba in the province, He denounced on Facebook which considers an attempt to minimize the magnitude of the outbreak. “Complete killings with arbovirosis outbreak !! please, this does not happen only in Cárdenas … do not distort reality anymore.”
Torres compared the current situation with the management of the Covid-19 Pandemia: “Then they also tried to hide it until they burst them in the face … No one told me then. I was here, I witnessed, I lived it.”
“Do not hide reality anymore. The people need solutions, do not notice at the wrong time, or justifications or curitas …”
In Holguín, the crisis follows Increased dengue cases in childrena threat aggravated by the simultaneous circulation of serotypes 3 and 4 of the virus that causes the disease.
In March 2016, the then first secretary of the party, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, admitted The failure in health management: “We can put the resources of the world, the fuel of the world, the men of the world, but if things are not done well, we will not obtain results in the battle against dengue.”
His words directly pointed to irresponsibility and lack of rigor in the primary care system. “If the investigation is not done as it has to be done, the epidemics will continue to repeat,” said Torres Iríbar at that time.
Years later, unfortunately, the forecast was fulfilled. Dengue shoots reported in 2017, 2020 and 2022 They confirmed that the problem is endemic and structural.
