Cuba's Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal, said today that for his country it is a duty to accompany the peoples of the world in the protection of health, regardless of complex scenarios.
The message came during a meeting with members of the Alliance for Health Development in Africa and the Caribbean who are participating in the 77th World Health Assembly, an event taking place this week in Geneva, Switzerland.
For Portal, it is impossible to talk about Cuban medical cooperation without mentioning our history of cooperation in Africa and the Caribbean.
He stressed that countless experiences are treasured from the work of our collaborators in those sister countries, which fills our people with pride.
He recalled that it was precisely in an African nation, Algeria, where our very human history of collaboration in the health sector began in 1963.
Since then, 50,759 Cuban cooperants have played the leading role in 42 African countries, and another 14,542 have done so in 21 Caribbean nations.
Currently, Cuba provides services in 27 African and 15 Caribbean states.
These are links that go beyond healthcare actions and reach the teaching field, as part of which we have contributed to the education and training of thousands of professionals, as well as to the creation and development of faculties of Medical Sciences in several of those territories, the minister added.
We can proudly say that our universities of Medical Sciences have graduated more than 10,000 African health professionals and more than 3,000 from the Caribbean, said Portal.