Cuban Health Worker in Africa to Fight Ebola Dies of Malaria

HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban health worker sent to Sierra Leone as part of a team to help fight Ebola has died of malaria.

US embargo stalled payment to Cuban Ebola doctors

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba had to cover food and lodging expenses for dozens of its doctors fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone after the U.S. embargo delayed payments from the World Health Organization, an official at the U.N. agency said.

Ebola control: the Cuban approach

More than 160 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Sierra Leone on Oct 2, 2014, to support local teams in controlling the Ebola epidemic. 300 more are being trained in Cuba at present and will be on their way to Liberia and Guinea in the coming weeks. The worldwide response to the Ebola epidemic has been slow and small. More nurses and doctors are certainly needed, not only from Cuba, but also from other countries.

Cuban doctor Felix Baez returns home after Ebola treatment

A Cuban doctor who recovered from Ebola after receiving experimental treatment in Switzerland has been welcomed back to Havana by relatives and officials.

Felix Baez was the first of Cuba's contingent of 250 doctors and nurses to have contracted Ebola in West Africa.

Cuba’s extraordinary global medical record shames the US blockade

From Ebola to earthquakes, Havana’s doctors have saved millions. Obama must lift this embargo

Four months into the internationally declared Ebola emergency that has devastated west Africa, Cuba leads the world in direct medical support to fight the epidemic. The US and Britain have sent thousands of troops and, along with other countries, promised aid – most of which has yet to materialise. But, as the World Health Organisation has insisted, what’s most urgently needed are health workers. The Caribbean island, with a population of just 11m and official per capita income of $6,000 (£3,824), answered that call before it was made. It was first on the Ebola frontline and has sent the largest contingent of doctors and nurses – 256 are already in the field, with another 200 volunteers on their way.

Cuban Health Workers in Liberia

This World Health Organisation film looks at the first of the Cuban health workers who arrived in Liberia in October to help fight the Ebola outbreak. The Cuban team consists of nurses, doctors, epidemiologists and intensive care specialists. Having received an initial Ebola training in Cuba, all team members received a second training in Liberia on how to work in an Ebola treatment unit.

How Ebola Could End the Cuban Embargo

When was last time in recent memory a top US official praised Cuba publicly? And since when has Cuba’s leadership offered to cooperate with Americans?

It’s rare for politicians from these two countries to stray from the narratives of suspicion and intransigence that have prevented productive collaboration for over half a century. Yet that’s just what has happened in the last few weeks, as Secretary of State John Kerry and US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power spoke favorably of Cuba’s medical intervention in West Africa, and Cuban President Raúl Castro and former president Fidel Castro signaled their willingness to cooperate with US efforts to stem the epidemic.

First Cuban doctor tests positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone

A Cuban doctor treating Ebola patients in West Africa is to be flown to Geneva after testing positive for the disease. The diagnosis comes after a seventh Sierra Leonean doctor died of the virus.

The doctor, identified by Cuban state media as Felix Baez, is part of the 165-member medical team Cuba sent to Sierra Leone in October to help fight Ebola. He is the first Cuban to contract the deadly virus.

A Cuban Brain Drain, Courtesy of the U.S.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, have praised the work of Cuban doctors dispatched to treat Ebola patients in West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sent an official to a regional meeting the Cuban government convened in Havana to coordinate efforts to fight the disease. In Africa, Cuban doctors are working in American-built facilities. The epidemic has had the unexpected effect of injecting common sense into an unnecessarily poisonous relationship.

Cuba's health diplomacy in the age of Ebola

Amid the worst Ebola outbreak of our time, it has been the small island nation of Cuba that has provided arguably the most impressive policy response.

Instead of offering financial assistance to those West African nations most in need, the Cuban government has focused on providing skilled healthcare workers passionate about helping Ebola victims.

The Cuban response is based on a combination of pre-existing government commitments to the provision of universal healthcare, the establishment of a medical education system emphasizing service to others, and Cuba's efforts to bolster its international reputation.

Cuba’s Ebola Diplomacy

Even in this age of international coalitions, the one arrayed against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is impressive. In September, more than a hundred and thirty nations voted in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring the virus, which is rampant in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, a threat to international security and creating the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, devoted to fighting the virus. The mission was put under the control of Anthony Banbury, a veteran U.N. troubleshooter, who hoped to tackle the job without the red tape that often bogs down U.N. missions. Within a week, Banbury had assembled a team of international experts, selected from thousands volunteers from the U.N.’s myriad agencies, and headed off to kick-start operations at his new field headquarters, in Accra, Ghana.

Cubans First to Support Sierra Leone Fight

When the UN appealed to five world presidents for help fighting the deadly disease, Cuba was the first to respond. Bernard Regan reports

The Ebola virus is killing five people an hour in Sierra Leone according to Justin Forsyth, Chief Executive of Save the Children. Some 765 new cases were reported in the country in the last week in September and there were only 327 hospital beds in the whole country.

But this tragedy is not only unfolding in that nation.

U.S. attends Ebola meeting in Cuba called by leftist bloc

U.S. government officials joined health experts from throughout the Americas at an Ebola conference in Cuba on Wednesday, the latest show of cooperation between the historic adversaries on fighting the disease.

The meeting organised by ALBA, a bloc of leftist-governed countries, aims to coordinate a regional strategy on the prevention and control of Ebola, which has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa but in the Americas has only reached the United States.

Cuba calling: what this small island can teach the world about disease control

West Africa needs what Cuba has: a well-trained, coordinated healthcare system. Anything less and Ebola wins

Guatemala, Pakistan, Indonesia, Haiti. Four different nations that share a common experience: in the past decade, they were all struck by natural disasters which overwhelmed their under-staffed and under-funded public health systems. Into the rubble, flooding, and chaos of these distinct cultures and contexts, Cuba dispatched a specialised disaster and epidemic control team to support local health providers. It was a story of unprecedented medical solidarity by a developing country which few media outlets picked up – until now.

Cuba leads the way in the fight against ebola

FORMER UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s “bitter disappointment” with the tardiness of the developed world in responding to the current Ebola epidemic will strike a chord with millions.

Who could deny that “if the crisis had hit some other region it probably would have been handled very differently?”

Margaret Chan Sends Message to ALBA Summit on Ebola

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 20 (acn) The Director General World Health Organization (WHO) Margaret Chan, sent a message to the Heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Trade Treaty of the Peoples (ALBA-TCP) that gathered in Havana for a Special Summit on Ebola.

Cuban News Agency now reproduces the text of her message:

Cuba's war on Ebola

With free universal health care, Cuba has already racked up impressive medical achievements - why not take on the globe?

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported: "In the medical response to Ebola, Cuba is punching far above its weight."

While the world stood accused of "dragging its feet" following the onset of the epidemic, the Post noted, the diminutive island had "emerged as a crucial provider of medical expertise in the West African nations hit by Ebola".

Cuba’s Impressive Role on Ebola

Cuba is an impoverished island that remains largely cut off from the world and lies about 4,500 miles from the West African nations where Ebola is spreading at an alarming rate. Yet, having pledged to deploy hundreds of medical professionals to the front lines of the pandemic, Cuba stands to play the most robust role among the nations seeking to contain the virus.

Kerry acknowledges Cuba role in Ebola fight

Secretary of State John Kerry paid a rare US compliment to Cuba on Friday, acknowledging the communist island nation's role in the global fight against Ebola in West Africa.

"Already we are seeing nations large and small stepping up in impressive ways to make a contribution on the frontlines," Kerry told foreign diplomats in Washington as he pleaded for a greater mobilization against the epidemic.

"Cuba, a country of just 11 million people, has sent 165 health professionals and it plans to send nearly 300 more."

On 17 October, former President of Cuba, Fidel Castro wrote an article saying that Cuba was willing to cooperate with the US in the fight against Ebola.