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Cuba’s high epidemiologist warned practically a 3rd of the inhabitants has been impacted and swaths of workforce sickened.
Revealed On 14 Nov 2025
Cuba is battling a wave of mosquito-borne diseases, with the nation’s high epidemiologist warning that just about one-third of the inhabitants has been impacted, with giant numbers of employees taken unwell.
On Thursday, fumigators armed with fogging machines probed alleys and crowded buildings in elements of the capital Havana, among the many hardest hit by mosquito-borne viruses together with dengue and chikungunya, authorities mentioned.
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It comes after Francisco Duran, the nationwide director of epidemiology on the Cuban Ministry of Public Well being, described the scenario within the Caribbean island nation as “acute”.
“We’re working intensely, as we did with COVID-19,” Duran mentioned, referring to ongoing analysis tasks to search out medicines and vaccines to assist tame the virus’s impacts.
Dengue fever has lengthy plagued Cuba, however has grown worse as the federal government’s capability to fumigate, clear roadside garbage and patch leaky pipes has been hampered by an ongoing financial disaster.
The once-rare chikungunya virus – which causes extreme headache, rashes and joint ache which may linger months after an infection, inflicting long-term incapacity – has additionally unfold rapidly in current months.
Chikungunya, which is unfold primarily by the Aedes mosquito species that additionally carries dengue and Zika, has no particular remedy.
Duran mentioned Cuban well being authorities are conducting two medical trials to check the efficacy of Jusviza, an injectable drug used to manage hyperinflammation, in treating chikungunya.
He continued that one other trial is beneath solution to consider rectal ozone remedy as a remedy for sufferers with joint ache following chikungunya’s acute part. This type of remedy entails administering ozone fuel by way of the rectum.
Outbreaks of chikungunya have contaminated nearly 340,000 folks globally to date in 2025, in line with the European Centre for Illness Prevention and Management (ECDC), leading to 145 deaths in at the least 16 international locations. In July, the World Well being Group issued an pressing name for motion to forestall one other epidemic of the virus.
Cuba’s healthcare system, as soon as among the many finest in Latin America, has suffered beneath a decades-long financial embargo orchestrated by america, looking for to stress Havana’s nominally communist authorities into making political and financial reforms.
Residents within the impoverished island nation routinely undergo from extreme shortages of meals, gas and drugs, whereas the poorest are sometimes unable to buy insect repellent.
The difficulty is exacerbated by frequent energy outages, which depart Cubans with little selection however to open their home windows and doorways to ease the warmth, inviting mosquitoes in and facilitating the unfold of the illness.
“The blockade is a coverage of collective punishment,” Cuban Overseas Minister Bruno Rodriguez mentioned in late October, because the United Nations Common Meeting once more overwhelmingly referred to as for an finish to Washington’s embargo for a thirty third 12 months.
“It flagrantly, massively and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans. It makes no distinction between social sectors or financial actors,” he mentioned.
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