Cuba deploys more doctors to fight Ebola
Cuban President Raul Castro (right) and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, cut the ribbons to inaugurate the Mariel "megaport" in Artemisa Province, Cuba, on January 27, 2014. The Kenyan government has decided to open an embassy in Havana, Cuba in what appears to be the island’s continuing attraction to the world. FILE PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- The daily wrote that there were 35 doctors and 48 nurses in the medical team being sent to West Africa, in an arrangement reached with the World Health Organization.
- Cuba already has sent 165 medical professionals to Sierra Leone, a much larger contingent than most Western countries.
- Sierra Leone is one of three west African nations hardest hit by the deadly Ebola epidemic, the world’s worst ever.
HAVANA
A contingent of 83 doctors and nurses departed Cuba late Tuesday for Guinea and Liberia, bringing to 256 the number of medical workers sent by Havana to fight the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
The state-run Granma newspaper reported today that the plane carrying the “heroic” medical workers was seen off at the airport by President Raul Castro, as they head “to the epicenter of the global fight against Ebola.”
The daily wrote that there were 35 doctors and 48 nurses in the medical team being sent to West Africa, in an arrangement reached with the World Health Organization.
Cuba already has sent 165 medical professionals to Sierra Leone, a much larger contingent than most Western countries.
The island’s response to the epidemic, which has killed more than 4,500 people in west Africa, has won plaudits from humanitarian workers who say the international community’s reaction has been lacking.
Meanwhile, two people died in a riot in Sierra Leone sparked when health workers struggling to contain the Ebola epidemic tried to take a blood sample from an elderly woman, doctors told AFP Wednesday.
HARDEST HIT
A machete-wielding mob clashed with security personnel in the eastern town of Koidu and then went on a rampage on Tuesday, after preventing a medical team from taking the blood from the 90-year-old mother of a youth leader, doctors from the local government hospital said.
The woman, who had been suspected to be infected with Ebola, had died and was thought to have high blood pressure.
Sierra Leone is one of three west African nations hardest hit by the deadly Ebola epidemic, the world’s worst ever.
Meanwhile, African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will travel to three west African nations worst hit by the Ebola crisis, one of the most senior officials to do so since the outbreak, her spokesman said on Wednesday.
Ms Dlamini-Zuma will visit Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia “to assess the situation first hand”, her spokesman said in a statement.
She arrived in the Ghanaian capital Accra on Wednesday, her spokesman said, the base of the United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), and is expected to travel on to Liberia on Thursday.
“We remain committed and in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in west Africa to put the Ebola epidemic under control,” Dlamini-Zuma said in the statement.
