Let's give something back to Cuba!
Cuba leads in the global fight against
COVID-19 Pandemic
Stabroek News On March 8, 2021 @ 2:01 am In In The Diaspora |
By Isaac Saney
Isaac Saney is a Cuba specialist at Dalhousie University, Canada and Co-Chair & Spokesperson, Canadian Network On Cuba
Cuba continues to receive international
accolades for its singular role in the global fight against the
COVID-19 pandemic. This is illustrated by the numerous nominations of Cuba’s
internationalist medical contingent – the Henry Reeve International Medical
Brigade against Disasters and Serious Epidemics – for the 2021 Nobel Peace
Prize.
Many countries are drawing on Cuba’s expertise
in fighting COVID-19. Almost 4,000 medical personnel in at least 39
countries and territories have participated and are participating in the
frontlines of the fight against the coronavirus in Latin America, the
Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The Caribbean and Latin
America have particularly benefited, with Cuban medical brigades in Jamaica,
Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Saint
Lucia, Suriname, Grenada, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mexico, Belize,
Venezuela and Nicaragua. Henry Reeve healthcare personnel are organized in
brigades depending on the local request. To date, 55 such brigades have served
abroad during the pandemic, and several countries have requested the assistance
of a second brigade when their case load spiked.
Cuba also offers treatment regimens, some of which are not available in the
United States. A key component of the protocols being used on the island and in
the medical missions is Cuba’s Interferon Alfa 2B Recombinant (IFNrec).
Scientific journals like the Lancet and the World Journal of Pediatrics have
recognised the impact of IFNrec. It has been used against various viral
infections for which there are no specific therapies available, having
demonstrated its ability to activate the patient’s immune system and to inhibit
viral replication. In Cuba, IFNrec has been used successfully to combat
outbreaks of dengue hemorrhagic fever and conjunctivitis, as well as to treat
Hepatitis B and C. It also demonstrated effectiveness in combatting and
providing protection against infections caused by various versions of the
coronavirus, such as SARS-CoV (the coronavirus of the 2002 outbreak) and SARS
and MERS-CoV (the coronavirus of the 2012 outbreak).
IFNrec is a crucial part of Cuban treatment protocols and is also used as
a preventative measure to protect healthcare workers from contagion. Various
countries have incorporated IFNrec into their national protocols and clinical
guidelines for COVID-19 treatment, where it is a crucial component of the
anti-viral treatment to combat the coronavirus. Nebulized Interferon Alfa 2B is
also recommended as a treatment for children and pregnant women with COVID-19.
While IFNrec is not a panacea, it has shown considerable promise as a
therapeutic response to COVID-19 in boosting the immune system’s
response. Additionally, the Cuban-developed Itolizumab and Biomodulin T
have been credited with reducing the death toll from COVID-19 and speeding
recovery, especially in high-risk patients.
Cuba is also testing four COVID-19 vaccine candidates: Soberana 1 and Soberana
2, developed by the Finlay Vaccine Institute, and Mambisa and Abdala, produced
by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. To date results
have been very encouraging. At the time of writing, three of the
candidates are either in phase 1 or phase 2 of clinical trials. Soberana 2 is
already in phase 3 testing, with Abdala poised to start later in March.
These testing stages evaluate efficacy and safety. All candidates must pass
phase 3 testing in which the efficacy and safety is further confirmed by
expanded trials encompassing thousands of persons. If they successfully pass
this stage, Soberana 2 and Abdala will be very close to final approval for use
in Cuba and the world. Havana is already making preparations for mass
production.
The Caribbean island has considerable expertise in vaccine design, development
and manufacture. Currently, Cuba’s biopharmaceutical industry already produces
8 vaccines that are integral to the island’s immunization program. In the
1980s, it developed the first vaccine against meningitis and, also produces a
Hepatitis B vaccine.
The Cuban government plans to have all Cubans vaccinated against COVID-19 by
the end of 2021. Vaccinations will also be available to visitors. Havana also
intends to produce 100 million vaccine doses for use across the global South,
with various countries
having already reserved doses. Export of Cuban pharmaceutical products is
managed through the state company BioCubaFarma, which currently distributes
more than 300 products to at least 50 countries. Rolando Pérez Rodríguez,
BioCubaFarma’s director of Science and Innovation, outlined Havana’s objective:
“In the second half of the year, we will be able to immunize the entire
population, and also provide doses to the countries that require it…It is about
sharing with the world what we are, the answer that Cuba can give to the
problem of the pandemic.”
Driving Cuba’s vaccine production is not only the determination to protect and
preserve the health of the people of Cuba and the world but also the exercise
and defence of sovereignty and the right of self-determination. For
example, Soberana means sovereignty in Spanish, while Abdala is named for the
famous poem by José Martí, Cuba’s national hero and principal intellectual
author and organizer of the 1895-1898 war to free Cuba from Spanish colonial
domination. Mambisa is a direct reference to Cuba’s national liberation
fighters during the19th century wars for independence.
In this time of pandemic, Cuba’s international medical humanitarianism reflects
the island’s history and dedication over the last six decades to
concrete international solidarity. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, Cuba
established an unparalleled legacy of internationalism: actively supporting and
engaging in the anti-colonial and national liberation struggles, and social
development and emancipation aspirations of countries across the global South.
From the early 1960s, more than 400,000 Cuban healthcare workers have
served in 164 countries. In southern Africa, more than 2,000 Cubans
gave their lives to defeat the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Nelson
Mandela never forgot. After he was released from prison, one of the first
countries outside of Africa and the first country in Latin America that he
chose to visit was Cuba.
Today this commitment to humanity is mirrored in the thousands of Cuban medical
personnel and educators who continue to serve around the world. Many of the
medical personnel now intimately involved in the fight against COVID-19 are
part of the specially trained Henry Reeve International Brigade, which
distinguished itself in the fight against the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West
Africa.
As Havana provides invaluable international assistance, it is also engaged in
its own fight against COVID-19 on the island. It is doing this in the face of
an unrelenting economic war waged by Washington against the people of Cuba: a
war that limits the island’s access to equipment and other necessary items
required to preserve the health of Cubans. Under the Trump regime, the U.S.
economic war against Cuba reached unprecedented levels with more than 240
distinct measures being targeted against the island nation.
Standing out as the epitome of duplicity was the designation of Cuba by the
United States as a sponsor of state terrorism. It is Cuba, since 1959, that has
been the victim of all manner of terrorist attacks that have been carried out
with the complicity, participation and sponsorship of Washington. Many of
these acts of terror were directly launched from and/or planned in the United
States. Some 3,478 Cubans have been killed and 2,099 injured as a result of
these acts of terrorism.
This most recent move by the Trump regime reflected Washington’s failure to
isolate Cuba in international relations and public opinion. This failure is
poignantly underscored by the growing global movement – encompassing
parliamentarians, prominent world figures, distinguished academics and multiple
petitions – to award Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Brigade the 2021 Nobel
Peace Prize. These nominations argue instead that it is Cuba that shows the
world a model of international relations that stands diametrically opposed to
terrorism.
Despite ongoing U.S. aggression, Cuba continues to prioritise the health and
lives of its citizens. For example, despite having a population similar in size
to Los Angeles county in the U.S., Cuba has more than 70 times fewer deaths
from COVID-19. In the case of New York City, Cuba’s death rate is more than 100
times smaller. The Cuban government affirms and upholds that healthcare is a
human right and places the well-being of its people at the centre of its
policies and political decisions. Every Cuban is visited regularly by a doctor
and has free access to all the treatment protocols available on the
island.
There is a growing recognition that Cuba’s example needs to be globalized. A
pandemic is by definition global. Surely, in the face of this worldwide menace,
now is the time for international medical cooperation and solidarity? A time
for joint efforts to confront COVID-19. A time to put political differences
aside in order to save lives. As Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez
declared on March 27, 2020: “Humanity faces a common challenge. This
pandemic does not respect borders or ideologies. It threatens the lives of all,
and it is everyone’s responsibility to address it.”
This is especially imperative as social fissures and chasms, the historic
and prevalent inequalities, inequities and disparities, particularly in
the healthcare system, have not only been starkly exposed but also
amplified. Recognizing this imperative, 15 U.S. cities, states and labour
councils, at present, have passed resolutions calling for medical collaboration
and cooperation with Cuba.
Cuban internationalist medical missions are the lived expression of symbolic
dreamcatchers. Just as dreamcatchers allow only good dreams to pass through,
while preventing nightmares, so too the Cuban medical internationalist missions
do their utmost to stop the nightmares of disease from reaching the people. In
the face of the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the world, in a world fraught with
the dangers of planetary wide conflagration, the Cuban medical brigades demonstrate
that relations among the world’s nations and peoples do not have to be
determined by self-interest and the pursuit of power and wealth. They hold out
to us the inspirational example that it is possible to build relations based on
genuine human solidarity.
Cuba is also in the midst of a significant domestic project of rectification
and economic renewal. The immediate context is monetary unification and the
recent significant expansion of the non-state sector i.e. self-employment and
private economic activity. The broader context is the more than decade long
series of economic measures to address inefficiencies and distortions
in the Cuban economic model. As the new arrangements are being phased in,
the Cuban government has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment that no one will
be abandoned or left to fend for themselves. All the social guarantees remain
in force, including universal free health care and education and an array
of other social programs.
The aim of the restructuring is to strengthen social programs, not privatize
nor dismantle them. As former Cuban President Raúl Castro stated the goal
is to achieve a sustainable and prosperous socialism. However, it is no small
feat for any country to overcome the worldwide economic crisis in a manner that
favours its people, not the global monopolies. A number of questions
naturally arise: How will the historic commitment of the Cuban Revolution to
the goal of equality – especially gender and racial equity – be affected by the
new economic policies? Do these measures entail fundamental departures from the
previous praxis of the Cuban Revolution?
Across Cuba a frequent slogan emblazoned on billboards is, “Each day in the
World 200 Million Children Sleep in the Streets. Not one is Cuban.”
Perhaps, in these uncertain times, in the face of immense challenges, this
best sums up what Cuba represents and strives to be.
