Havana, 30 March 2020.- Fourteen brigades of the Cuban International Contingent of Specialized Physicians in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics "Henry Reeve", fight in other nations the new coronavirus SARS CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, which has been to more than 174 countries.
Dr. José Angel Portal Miranda, Cuban Minister of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported on Sunday march 29th in a video conference with the national and foreign press accredited in Havana that, of the 593 health professionals sent, 179 are doctors, 399 nurses and 15 health technologists, and noted that 338 are women.
This new gesture, even though not all countries have succeeded in doing so, will continue to distinguish the Cuban Revolution, the minister said, and clarified that "the Henry Reeve brigades that are now helping other countries for nothing puts the health care of the Cuban people at risk".
Cuba has 95,000 doctors (nine per thousand inhabitants) and 84,000 nurses, and sufficient availability of human resources to help other peoples fight the new pathogen, without affecting service to our population.
Portal Miranda said that Cuba has a story of solidarity that no one can tarnish and exemplified that the principle of sharing what we have and not what we have left is backed up in that sense.
The Contingent since its creation by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro in September 2005 has been with 28 brigades in 22 countries, more than seven thousand 950 professionals have faced the effects of 16 floods, eight hurricanes, eight earthquakes and four epidemics and can be highlight the three brigades that faced Ebola in West Africa, the Minister said.
Based on requests made by certain governments to the current epidemic, Cuba prepared these brigades to combat coronavirus and are now in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Suriname, Grenada, Angola, Jamaica, Italy, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Andorra.
Always ready to go to those places on the planet affected by a disaster or epidemic, the members of the "Henry Reeve" contingent are immersed in Cuba's health system, where day by day they serve their people and help ensure the most precious of the rights: health, and they put Cuba's name high.
Embacuba Grecia (with information from Granma y Cubaminrex)