Canberra, May 8, 2020.- In its stellar broadcast last Thursday, the Australian public broadcasting media, ABC (Australia Broadcasting Corporation), dedicated an interview program about the Cuban medical cooperation in the world on its national radio space. Under the title “Cuban doctors are battling COVID-19 around the globe”, Australian journalist Jonathan Green had Professor John Kirk, from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, as a special guest on his program.
The Canadian academic, a specialist in Latin American studies, reviewed the origins of Cuban medical cooperation in the 1960s, going through the creation of the Henry Reeve contingent specialized in situations of disasters and serious epidemics and highlighting some milestones of the internationalist missions of Cuba in health, such as: the presence of Cuban doctors in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake; the development of Operation Miracle in Latin America and the experience of facing the Ebola epidemic in West Africa during 2012, being Cuba the first country to respond to the call of the World Health Organization.
Professor Kirk, who has published books on the subject, highlighted the current presence of medical brigades in more than twenty countries in the context of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the pressure from the United States government. In his opinion, the work of Cuban doctors in the world is "a very well protected secret", because despite its high impact it is practically unknown when referring to large media.