Meeting on Prevention and Fight against Ebola in Cuba

Experts and medical directors from more than 30 nations participated in a technical meeting in Havana for the prevention and confrontation of Ebola virus, in order to avoid the incidence of this disease in the Americas. After opening the meeting on October 29, Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales stated that the island has been implementing a plan to prevent the introduction and spread of the epidemic outbreak that is affecting West African nations.

Cuba is stepping up control sanitary measures and developing training programs in Africa and countries which has collaboration with the Caribbean island.

Sylvain Aldighier, coordinator of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) for international disease surveillance, stated that the risk of introduction of Ebola in the hemisphere is low, but we have to work to promptly detect possible cases, contain the chain of transmission, and prevent new infections.

Since the emergency was declared, Cuba decided to maintain its 32 medical brigades in Africa, and a contingent of 165 Cuban health professionals are working in Sierra Leone since early October.

Another group of 91 physicians and nurses traveled to Liberia and Guinea Conakri.

Current statistics show there are 10,487 cases of Ebola in that region called the black continent, which has already killed more than 5,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Conakri, and Congo, primarily, although other cases have been reported in nations such as Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, the United States, and Spain.

The results of the meeting will enable to conform an action plan that should be delivered to the heads of State and Government of the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), for consideration, at the very latest on November 5, and its immediate application

Source: KUNA