The Cuban Government has recognized the seriousness of the current health situation, although without offering a key piece of information: what is causing the increase in deaths.
MIAMI, United States. – The network of funeral services in Cuba would be going through a collapse even greater than that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, with delays of up to 14 hours to collect and bury corpses, overflowing funeral homes and a chronic deficit of resources, according to a report of Martí News.
An administrator of the Central Necrology Base of Havana—the entity in charge of distributing the funeral cars to 24 funeral homes in the capital—offered details to that medium about the current panorama: “Havana is collapsed. There are more than 160 deaths a day. These carts that we have do burial[s]collection[s]cremations. We work with 18 cars, plus the alternatives that the governor is sending us. We don’t have much more. We also have most of the drivers sick with the virus,” the official told Martí News.
The same source added: “Just yesterday [10 de noviembre] There were more than 162 deaths. Those deceased must be buried, they must be taken to the incinerator, etc. (…) From October 10 to date, Havana collapsed to [sic] more than 100 deaths daily. “They have not given us the information about what caused the collapse.”
Finally, he warned that the crisis has already reached the cemeteries: “Cemeteries are already collapsing, for example, the [de] Colon”.
From the Mauline funeral home, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, a worker also confirmed to Martí News the increase in the daily number of deaths: “Every day there are many deaths. In the month of October I ended up with 295 deaths. We have to be putting deaths even in the hallway. (…) Sometimes I have 12 to 13 deaths, daily. We don’t know why there are so many deaths; they haven’t told us anything,” he declared.
The Cuban Government has recognized the seriousness of the current health situation, although without offering the key information that workers and mourners are asking for: what is the reason for the increase in deaths.
This Tuesday, Miguel Díaz-Canel announced that his government would replicate the management scheme used during the COVID-19 pandemic to confront the current “epidemic of cases with Nonspecific Febrile Syndrome (SFI), caused, above all, by arboviruses,” according to an official report from the Cuban Presidency.
“We are going to work on this epidemic as we worked on the COVID-19“said the president at the Meeting of Experts and Scientists on Health Issues held at the headquarters of the Cuban Government.
According to data from the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) presented at that meeting, fever cases increased in 68 municipalities in the country in the last week and dengue transmission was reported in 38 municipalities.
Regarding chikungunya, a cumulative 21,681 cases were reported (more than 20,000 with clinical suspicion and 692 confirmed) distributed in 14 provinces, 93 municipalities and 151 health areas.
Until now, the island’s regime has only admitted three deaths from dengue so far in 2025, although it has not detailed the date of the deaths, the profile of the dead or in which territories they resided.
On social networks and independent media, however, reports of people dying from the “virus” are increasing, as the population calls any of the three arboviruses currently circulating in the country.
