The
U.S.-Cuba-Canada Collaboration to Fight Covid-19 announced today more than two
hundred medical professionals, academics, elected officials and concerned
multi-country residents endorsed a statement (download) calling for medical, clinical and scientific collaboration
with Cuba, incorporating Cuba's Interferon
Alfa 2B Recombinant (download) in clinical trials and
ending the attempts to stop other countries from accepting Cuban medical
assistance and measures preventing Cuba from importing
medical equipment and medicines.
In this
moment, when the planet is facing a pandemic and the lives of human beings are
at risk, solidarity and collaboration are essential. No source of life saving
expertise can be sidelined in the fight against this new disease.
Dr. Michael
Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at
the University of Minnesota and one of the country's most respected health
experts supports including Cuba's Interferon Alpha 2B in trials. He said:
"I hope that ALL possible drugs are rapidly and comprehensively evaluated
without regard to country of origin."
Medical
collaboration between entities in the United States and Cuba have precedents.
The recent PBS Nova program Cuba's Cancer Hope outlines Cuba's partnership with Roswell Park Comprehensive
Cancer Center for an FDA trial of Cuba's lung cancer vaccine Cimavax-EGF. In
2016 a Memorandum
of Understanding (download) was signed between the
U.S. Health and Human Services and Cuba's Ministry of Public Health, laying the
basis for collaboration such as this. In 2017 four Cuban doctors joined with
the University of Illinois to work on high maternal and infant deaths in a
Chicago neighborhood.
An April
21-22 snapshot of COVID-19 statistics comparing the City of Detroit, population
670,000, with Cuba, 11.3 million, gives ample reason to reach out for Cuban
expertise. "With only 6 percent of Cuba's population, Detroit suffered 18
times more deaths," said Cheryl LaBash, from the Miller Grove Block Club
in Northwest Detroit. "Let's try everything to save lives, now," she ended.
This campaign is a united effort between the
U.S. based National Network on
Cuba (NNOC.info) and the Canadian Network on Cuba (canadiannetworkoncuba.ca)
On the web at SavingLives.US-CubaNormalization.org
