With a tradition of service in the world’s poorest and most forgotten states, the Cubans are a major frontline force in the multinational response to the raging epidemic
They don’t send out press releases, don’t have public information officers and their contacts are not widely publicized by the huge international humanitarian operation helping cholera-hit Haiti.
But when the United Nations appeals for more doctors and nurses to combat the deadly disease that is killing dozens by the day, it is to Cuba’s medical brigade that U.N. officials are likely to turn to first.
With a tradition of service in the world’s poorest and most forgotten states, the Cubans are a major frontline force in the multinational response to the raging epidemic, which has killed at least 2,000 people and probably more, since mid-October in the impoverished country.
While many Western aid workers crowd Haiti’s capital, where more than 1.3 million vulnerable homeless survivors of the January 12 earthquake are crammed into tent camps, Cuba’s medics are seeking out cholera victims in hard-to-reach rural hamlets.
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| While many Western aid workers crowd Haiti’s capital, Cuba’s medics are seeking out cholera victims in hard-to-reach rural hamlets. |
“We don’t look for publicity but we do look for the people,” Dr. Lorenzo Somarriba, coordinator of the Cuban Medical Brigade in Haiti, told Reuters at the brigade’s headquarters in a Port-au-Prince suburb.
“The Cuban doctors are working in the most difficult places. It’s our policy to concentrate on areas outside the national capital,” he said, a fact acknowledged by both Haitian and foreign health authorities.
Read the rest . . .
Also see
> How shameful, NATO talking about cannons in Lisbon while thousands are dying in Haiti
and
> Minustah and the Epidemic
> Duty and the epidemic in Haiti
> News on cholera in Haiti
