Cuba announced the departure of medical brigades to deal with the expansion of COVID-19 in several countries that requested its cooperation.
This Saturday one of them will fly to Italy to work in the Lombardy region, the one most affected by the pandemic. The doctors who will provide their services in Suriname and Grenada were bid farewell yesterday.
They will arrive in Italy after the request for help made by this region due to the shortage of personnel in the already overflowing hospitals, said Giulio Gallera, the regional health adviser.
“This highly specialized personnel have participated in the fight against Ebola and know how to treat this type of disease,” the Italian official announced, adding that they will go “to alleviate the situation in the Crema hospital.”
The Cuban doctors and paramedics will join the dozen Chinese doctors who arrived in Milan and who will be sent to a new field hospital in Bergamo, the Lombard province most affected by the new coronavirus.
Cuban collaborators are already working with the same purpose in Venezuela and Nicaragua, responding to the request of the governments of both Latin American nations.
Cuba envía personal médico a Italia para combatir el coronavirus
Cuba today provides medical cooperation in 37 countries that report COVID-19. Cuban aid workers are in good health and measures were taken for prevention and self-care, according to Dr. Jorge Juan Delgado Bustillo, director of the Ministry of Public Health Central Medical Collaboration Unit.
“As of this minute, no health worker is reported to be ill with the new coronavirus in our medical brigades abroad,” he said.