Cuba and COVID19: Public Health, Science and Solidarity

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Click here to watch the film on Youtube.

Friday 13 November 2020

Time: 7.35–8.45

Cuba and COVID19: Public Health, Science and Solidarity – DaniFilms / Cuba-UK / 2020

8.45-9.45 Q&A Helen Yaffe, Valia Rodriguez

About the Film
A global pandemic in a globalised world. Over one million people have died. What could we have done differently to save lives and livelihoods?

In search of collective solutions and best practice, Dr Helen Yaffe, economic historian at the University of Glasgow and Dr Valia Rodriguez, Cuban physician at the University of Aston, look to Cuba for valuable lessons. By reacting quickly and decisively, mobilising their extensive public healthcare system and state-owned biotech sector, Cuba has kept contagion and fatalities down and initiated clinical trials for a Covid-19 vaccine. They have also treated patients and saved lives overseas.

Based on interviews with top scientists, community doctors and medical internationalists, this documentary explores Cuba’s outstanding domestic and international response to the global pandemic. From Cuba’s extraordinary biotech sector we interview Dr Luis Herrera Martínez, who led the team that produced the Cuban anti-viral drug Interferon Alfa 2b in 1986 and is now a scientific adviser to BioCubaFarma; Dr Gerardo Guillén, Director of Biomedical Research at the world-leading Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, which has produced some of the innovative drugs on Cuba’s Covid-19 treatment protocol; and Dr Mitchell Valdes Sosa, Director General of the Cuban Neuroscience Centre, which was charged with manufacturing the medical equipment required during the pandemic.

We interview a family doctor from Havana, who conducts daily door-to-door health checks to track down the virus and slow community transmission, and a medical student who was among 28,000 others to join the public health campaign as universities were shut down. We hear from Jesús Ruiz Alemán, a member of the Henry Reeve International Medical Contingent who went to Lombardy in Italy when it was the epicentre of the global pandemic.

Through active screening, testing, tracing, isolating, hospitalising and following up cases, by 19 October the island of 11.2 million people reported just 6,258 cases and 127 deaths. No healthcare workers, pregnant women or children had died of Covid-19 on the island and clinical trials were underway for 13 Covid-19 related domestic biopharma products. Since March, 3,700 Cuban medical specialists in disease control had treated over 350,000 Covid-19 patients in nearly 40 countries. This has been achieved despite the Trump administration severely tightening sanctions against Cuba, blocking revenues and generating scarcities of oil, food and medical goods.

Presented by Dr Helen Yaffe and Dr Valia Rodriguez, Cuba & Covid-19: public health, science and solidarity is produced by DaniFilms in collaboration with Belly of the Beast Cuba.

The documentary is followed by a live Q&A between Helen Yaffe and Valia Rodriguez on our Facebook page at 8.45pm

Any donations will go towards medical aid for Cuba's public healthcare system. Click here to donate.

Sol Palmeras Hotel Varadero - Cuba

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Visto: 2140

Anyone planning a trip to Cuba should check out this video of the Sol Palmeras Hotel Varadero, which has implemented safety measures and is ready to receive tourists. Contact Havanatour UK www.havanatour.co.uk

British academic nominates Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Contingent for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Dr Helen Yaffe is a Lecturer in Economic and Social History and the University of Glasgow, and author of the recently published book, We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, Yale University Press, 2020. She adds her voice to the growing international call for the Cuban medics to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the Henry Reeve International Medical Contingent

In Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Contingents, the foundational aspirations of the Nobel Prize are met: ‘those who have done the most, or the best work for fraternity between nations.’

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen the international community fracture; Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Contingent has offered a counterexample, exemplifying the benefits of global healthcare cooperation. On 21 March 2020, 10 days after the World Health Organisation declared the SARS-Cov2 virus to be a pandemic, 53 Cuban medics, specialists in disaster response and disease control, arrived in Lombardy, Italy, at that time the epicentre of the pandemic, to assist local healthcare authorities. They were the first brigade of the Henry Reeve Contingent formed specifically to combat Covid-19 overseas, and the first to provide medical assistance in Europe.

By 22 September, the Henry Reeve Contingent had sent 3,700 Cuban medical specialists, organised into 46 medical brigades, to treat Covid-19 patients in 39 countries. In 5 months, these Cuban healthcare professionals, 60% of them women, had treated over 350,000 people, saving nearly 10,000 lives. No other country in the world, much less the wealthy nations, has provided anything like the assistance that Cuba has offered by sharing its epidemiological specialists and expertise with people around the world. Most of the beneficiaries of Cuba’s Henry Reeve brigades are poor people in developing countries, who have been left behind in the unseemly scramble by the rich nations to secure themselves PPE, ventilators, drugs and vaccines. Cuba has mobilised resources to offer this assistance despite the deterioration of the island’s economy; the US has tightened sanctions, generating serious shortages, and even blocked Cuban access to the ventilators and PPE needed to fight Covid-19 at home.

The Covid-19 pandemic teaches us the importance of international collaboration in a world so globalised that all our lives are intertwined. It teaches us that public health is a priority; a precondition to peace and security. A Nobel Peace Prize would reflect a new global awareness about the importance of healthcare & solidarity.

Here is the letter which accompanied the nomination:

Cubanos residentes en Europa realizarán foro para apoyar a su patria

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Por Waldo Mendiluza

París, 29 sep (Prensa Latina) Cubanos residentes en diversos países de Europa realizarán en octubre un encuentro virtual para apoyar a la isla, en medio de una escalada de hostilidad de Estados Unidos y la contrarrevolución, adelantaron hoy organizadores del foro.

En declaraciones a Prensa Latina, el presidente de la Asociación de Cubanos Residentes en Alemania, José Conde, precisó que el 10 de octubre se lanzará el evento, previsto dos semanas después con la participación de organizaciones y personas diseminadas por todo el viejo continente.

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Llega a Cuba donación enviada por la comunidad cubana en Reino Unido

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Estimados amigos de Cuba,

Compatriotas,

Re: Sobre la recaudación de fondos para apoyar la construcción de ventiladores emergentes en Cuba en la lucha contra la pandemia de COVID-19

El pasado viernes 7 agosto 2020 fue recogido por el Centro de Neurociencias de Cuba (CNEURO) en la aduana cubana la donación de insumos necesarios para el completamiento de 250 ventiladores no invasivos que CNEURO entregará a la red nacional de salud en el mes de Octubre-Noviembre, como parte de las estrategias desarrolladas en el país para enfrentar la pandemia de COVID-19.

Esta donación fue adquirida por “Cubanos en UK”  y fue posible gracias a todas las personas y organizaciones que, de manera solidaria, contribuyeron a la recaudación de £26,000 mil libras realizada el pasado mes de Mayo.

La donación enviada a CNEURO, entidad encargada de la fabricación de los ventiladores, incluye: 

• Mascaras CPAP M/L
• Arneses para mascaras CPAP
• Válvulas PEEP
• Filtros de respiración

Estos materiales enviados constituyen las partes de los circuitos de acople de los pacientes a los ventiladores no invasivos.

Como parte del apoyo a la construcción de los ventiladores emergentes no invasivos en Cuba, “Cubanos en UK” recibió como donación de la University College London (UCL)  un ventilador no invasivo UCL-Ventura, en cuyo diseño se basó el desarrollo cubano de ventiladores no invasivos. La unidad UCL-Ventura será utilizada en las pruebas de control de calidad de las unidades cubanas.

También fueron adquiridos con el dinero recaudado en Mayo: 5000 jeringuillas estériles y 1600 guantes de examen que son enviados en el contenedor coordinado por “Cubanos en Holanda” al cual han aportado distintas organizaciones y grupos en Europa, y que viajará desde Holanda a Cuba este mes de Agosto.

A pesar de los continuos desafíos y obstáculos producto del bloqueo de EE.UU. hacia Cuba, el gobierno cubano en conjunto con las instituciones involucradas ha logrado enfrentar con eficacia el Covid-19 dentro el país, y al mismo tiempo Cuba está dando un ejemplo de solidaridad y colaboración internacional con el envío de brigadas médicas a terceros países.

Dr Valia Rodríguez-Rodríguez  y  Dr Miriam Palacios-Callender

Organizadoras de la recaudació, Miembros de “Cubanos en UK”

Daniesky Acosta

Coordinador General “Cubanos en UK”