US Blockade on Cuba Hurts the Island's Health System

The economic, financial and trade blockade the US Government on Cuba has caused the island''s health system damages for over 2.5 billion dollars in almost 60 years, its Foreign Ministry upholds.

In its report for the upcoming 2018 session of the UN General Assembly, the Cuban government sustains the most serious damages arise from the hardships to purchase medications, instruments, spare parts for medical equipment and consumables needed for the sector's functioning.

The report is attached to a resolution Cuba will submit once again to the General Assembly to demand the end of the US hostile policy that has been condemned by the international body for the past 25 years.

It explains the hardships arise from having to make purchases in faraway markets and in many occasions through middlemen, and this causes prices to rise.

This generates suffering and desperation among patients and relatives alike for not having the proper medication for the adequate treatment of an ailment or to save a life, a human pain that is unquantifiable, the report stresses.

It mentions that MediCuba, an importing and exporting agency, sent requests during the past year to 30 US pharmacological companies to purchase medications and consumables, but only got replies from two, Agilent and Cook Medical, but both answered that according to blockade restrictions they were unable to make sales to Cuba.

Among the items MedicaCuba was trying to purchase was Temozolamide, a medication to treat malign brain tumor, or Evolucumab Repatha, designed to treat high cholesterol in high risk patients.

Next October 31 the UN General Assembly will debate and put to vote the Cuban resolution that demand the end of the blockade.

Since 1992, the initiative has been supported and voted by most of the international community. In the past three years 191 of the 193 UN member nations voted in favor of the Cuban resolution. In 2017, only the US and Israel voted against it.