Cuba: an internationalist response to the COVID-19 global health crisis
Online meeting
Monday, 1 June 2020, 6:30pm
Join our live online discussion to hear Cuban health specialists talk about how the island is fighting coronavirus at home and abroad.
Register here
Guest speakers:
- Dr Jorge Delgado Bustillo: Director of Cuba’s Central Medical Collaboration Unit (UCCM), responsible for the international teams of Cuban medics volunteering in 59 countries around the world
- Dr Katty-Hind Selman-Housein Bernal: Cuban health professional with more than 20 years experience of community and public health including as a family doctor and intensive care specialist
- Her Excellency Bárbara Elena Montalvo Álvarez: Cuban ambassador to the United Kingdom
- Rob Miller: Cuba Solidarity Campaign director
- Chair- Christine Blower: Labour member of the House of Lords and former General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers
More than 2,000 Cuban medical professionals are currently helping to fight the COVID-19 pandemic around the world. There are growing calls for these brigades to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and Noam Chomsky has described the island as the only nation demonstrating “genuine internationalism” during the current crisis.
At home Cuba is battling the virus using its networks of family doctors and community health volunteers to make regular house calls and trace contacts, while its pharmaceutical industry is producing treatments to boost the immune system and aid recovery.
Meanwhile the Trump administration continues to intensify the blockade. In recent weeks it has prevented a Chinese medical aid shipment of Covid-19 testing kits and ventilators from reaching the island. It has tried to warn countries off accepting Cuban medical brigades. And it has made moves to add Cuba back onto its countries that support terrorism blacklist at the same time that the Cuban embassy in Washington itself suffered a terrorist attack.
The Cuba Solidarity Campaign has used this time to campaign for the blockade to be suspended to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered to the island, and raised funds for medical aid. More than 16,500 people have signed our online petition and £27,000 has already been transferred to Cuba.
Once you have registered, information on how to join the event will be sent on Monday morning. Please submit questions in advance to campaigns@cuba-solidarity.org.uk.
