By Alejandra Garcia on May 25, 2021
Photo: Omara García. Mederos/ACN
Since the beginning of 2021, Cuba has allocated over $300 million to contain the pandemic. This figure speaks volumes about how the government has focused its efforts on lowering the contagion curve in this poor, blockaded nation that has no vast natural resources.
“These have been days of intense work and little rest, of untold sacrifices. But nothing has been in vain,” Economy Minister Alejandro Gil said during a televised intervention.
Today, Cuba is the country with the highest rate of COVID-19 recoveries in Latin America and is the only one that has developed not one but five COVID-19 vaccines. Intensive Care Units have not collapsed, and health services have been prioritized for those who test positive for the virus and those with other equally deadly diseases.
Health care workers have been at the bedside of the over 135,000 cases that have been confirmed on the island since last year. Behind the doctors, the country’s leaders have been devising strategies, allocating funds to sustain isolation centers, guaranteeing gasoline and transportation for transferring patients to medical points dedicated exclusively to the treatment of the new disease.
“The $300 million has been earmarked for the acquisition of COVID-19 tests and the operation of molecular biology laboratories. Thanks to that investment, every day we are expanding the spectrum of PCR tests, and every day we are closer to immunize the entire population with our homegrown vaccines,” Gil highlighted.
This government budget does not include other equally essential expenses allocated to contain the disease’s spread, such as guaranteeing free transportation, food, medicine, and medical care for patients and people suspected of carrying the disease.
“The real impact of the pandemic cannot be accounted for. There are indirect economic spillovers that cannot be accurately assessed, and that are just as expensive as trying to acquire medicines and PCR tests outside the island,” the minister said.
The country’s expenditure on isolation centers and the transportation of suspected, positive, and convalescent cases has been nearly 2 billion Cuban pesos.
The health crisis has put the world economy in check. Prices of medicines and food have skyrocketed, as each country is prioritizing its own population’s supply. “For poor countries like Cuba, the challenge has been immense. Logically, given priority to the treatment of COVID-19 patients has caused shortages of medicines and other inputs,” the official explained.
The Cuban economic situation, previously hit by the immovable U.S. blockade, has been hit by the devastating decrease in tourists, the closing of factories and private businesses, the recession of those state services that are not of primary necessity, the reduction of personnel in workplaces and public transportation, and the curfew imposed in the most affected cities by the virus.
If it weren’t for the blockade, “this would be another Cuba. We aspire to nothing other than to work under normal conditions,” he pointed out.
Still, Cuba has achieved the impossible: leaving no one helpless, despite the extreme circumstances. “We will allocate whatever money is necessary to protect the people and to continue developing our pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry,” the minister concluded.