Category: Ebola
Cuban Doctor who contracted Ebola will return to West Africa
| December 30, 2014 | 9:02 pm | Cuba, Ebola, International, Latin America | Comments closed
Source: Telesur English
Felix Baez Sarria will reunite with his colleagues in the Ebola-stricken country next month.
After contracting the Ebola virus while attending patients in West Africa, Cuban doctor Felix Baez Sarria pledged to return to the region once he recovered.

Baez announced this week that he will rejoin his 254 Cuban colleagues in the area to keep fighting the disease.

“I feel very good emotionally and physically,” Baez told the Cuban daily Granma​ in Havana, where he arrived early December after contracting the disease during a medical mission in Sierra Leone.
 “My recovery has gone very well and I am now enjoying my family and friends.”
However, he explained to Cuban TV that he will “go back in the first days of of the new year to Sierra Leone.”
“We are going to fulfil the commitment to return to Cuba, all of us, safe and sound with the satisfaction of having fulfilled our duty”
“The first day they (Cuban colleagues in Africa) told me, ‘take care of yourself, you have to come back’ and I told them ‘of course, I’m going to be with you, don’t worry, I’m going to be back with you again as soon as possible’,” Baez continued.
Baez, 43, is one of the hundreds of Cuban medical professionals deployed in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – the nations most affected by the disease.
The United Nations has praised Cuba for its contribution to tackle the disease, which according to the World Health Organization has infected more than 19,000 people and killed about 7,000.
Time Names Ebola Fighters Person of the Year, Forgets Cubans
| December 11, 2014 | 9:04 pm | Analysis, Ebola, International | Comments closed
Source:TELESUR ENGLISH
[This piece appeared on Telesur under the headline “Time Names Ebola Fighters Person of the Year, Forgets Cubans.”]
Nurses, doctors, and other volunteers fighting Ebola in West Africa through “tireless acts of courage and mercy” have been named Time’s 2014 Person of the Year, the magazine announced Wednesday [12/10/2014].
However, the magazine however failed mention the huge effort by hundreds of Cuban doctors and nurses.
The magazine praised the work of the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders(MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse, and “many others from all over the world” who “fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams.”
It specifically named: Dr. Jerry Brown, 46, medical director at the Eternal Love Winning Africa Hospital, Monrovia, Liberia; Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, physician with Samaritan’s Purse; Ella Watson-Stryker, 34, MSF health promoter; Foday Gallah, 37, ambulance supervisor and Ebola survivor, Monrovia, Liberia; and Katie Meyler, 32, founder of a school for vulnerable girls from the West Point slum of Monrovia.
​Runners up to the title of Person of the Year, included “Ferguson protestors, the activists,” “Vladimir Putin, the Imperialist,” “Massoud Barzani, The Opportunist” and “Jack Ma, The Capitalist.”
In November the magazine published an article titled “Why Cuba Is So Good at Fighting Ebola?” highlighting the island as the first nation to dedicate hundreds of health care workers to West Africa.
“As the first nation to dedicate hundreds of health care workers to West Africa, Cuba is an unlikely hero in the Ebola outbreak. Inspite of not being among the wealthiest countries, Cuba is one of the most committed when it comes to deploying doctors to crisis zones,” the article states.
Cuba has sent more than 460 Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa, and currently, 165 are working there with the World Heath Organization (WHO).
In November, Time also highlighted the fact more than 50,000 health care workers from Cuba are working in 66 countries around the world.
“When Cuban doctors graduate medical school, they are given the opportunity to volunteer to be called upon for medical missions, like an Ebola outbreak or a natural catastrophe. Often, these are one to two year commitments,” the magazine noted.
Time recalled that more than 23,000 medical students from low-income communities in 83 countries, including the U.S., have graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana and become doctors, while nearly 10,000 students are currently enrolled.
Cuban MD who contracted Ebola returning home soon
| December 6, 2014 | 7:57 pm | Analysis, Ebola, International, Latin America | Comments closed
Source: Havana Times
The Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone has recovered from the disease and will soon return to the island, according to a statement from the health authorities published today in Havana.
Those responsible for the University Hospital of Geneva where Dr. Felix Baez is being treated “confirmed that the testing has confirmed the disappearance of the virus in his body fluids,” stated the text of the Ministry of Health cited by Prensa Latina.
When discharged, the doctor will return to Cuba, added the text, without specifying dates. Baez is part of a contingent of 165 Cuban medical personnel who traveled to Sierra Leone in October to fight Ebola.
The doctor contracted the disease in mid-November and was taken days later to Geneva, under an agreement between Cuba and the World Health Organization (WHO) to treat Cuban collaborators who could become sick with Ebola in West Africa, noted dpa news.
Cuba has been at the forefront of the international fight against Ebola by sending a total of 256 doctors and other health workers to the three countries most affected by the epidemic, which has killed at least 6,187 people, according to the latest figures from the WHO.
In addition to the 165 aid workers in Sierra Leone, the government of Raul Castro sent another 91 to Liberia and Guinea in mid-October. WHO currently estimates the number of infections in the three countries at 17,517, in what is considered the worst outbreak of Ebola in history.
After the departure of the Cuban medical teams to Africa, WHO sources [?] on the island had specified that those who fell ill with Ebola would not be repatriated to Cuba. Baez is the first Latin American known to have contracted the virus.