Another Cuban Brigade Returns After Battling COVID-19 in Belize

In just one year of the COVID-19 battle, Cuba has traveled to every continent offering support to 40 countries

Author: Liz Conde Sánchez | [email protected]

January 28, 2021 11:01:21

Photo: Jose M. Correa

With a message recognizing their work in Belize over more than nine months, the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, welcomed to the homeland members of the Henry Reeve Contingent medical brigade offering assistance in the Central American nation, where they successfully completed the mission with which they were entrusted, battling the COVID-19 pandemic and providing assistance in several health institutions around the country.

"This brigade has done exemplary work providing coverage (...) in all this sister republic’s public institutions. The results achieved make us proud to have you as part of this army of white coats which has given a resounding demonstration of solidarity in these difficult times," the President stated to the 49 doctors who arrived in Havana January 23, a group including 20 women and 29 men from 12 provinces and the Isle of Youth special municipality, of whom 20 are specialists in General Comprehensive Medicine, one in Epidemiology, two in Clinical Laboratory, two in Imaging and two in Electromedicine, in addition to 22 registered nurses.

After receiving training in the different services provided by the Belize Public Health System, the Cuban professionals were distributed across the nation’s six regions, working in all public health institutions, as part of multidisciplinary teams with their Belizean counterparts and health care workers from other countries.

They conducted action research in institutions, communities, and border areas; assumed positions in emergency rooms and isolation units for COVID-19 patients in serious and critical condition; attended ambulatory patients in outpatient areas, providing hospital services, including those in the country’s mother-child program; and contributed with their experience in areas like diagnostic tools, special chemicals, and plasmapheresis, as well as in the repair and maintenance of medical equipment.