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Cuba wages war on tiny enemy: the mosquito
that spreads dengue
Isabel Sanchez and Francoise
Kadri. September 23, 2006.
HAVANA (AFP) - Fidel Castro isn't the only
one ailing in Cuba, where authorities are
on the charge, spraying from aircraft and
military trucks in a war on a great big,
tiny enemy: the mosquito that spreads dengue.
The communist government has summoned everyone
from miltary troops to ordinary workers,
to young people doing their military service
and school kids, to pitch in in the fight
against dengue, which in its hemorrhagic
form can be deadly.
Thick clouds of white fumigation chemicals
have become an everyday sight in Havana
and around the country, day and night. Cuban
health officials have not confirmed or denied
cases of dengue.
"We cannot speak of an epidemic ...
but there are people who have dengue,"
a physician, 35, told AFP on condition that
he not be named.
In the hot rainy summer season "there
are a lot of smaller outbreaks of diseases;
prevention is health policy in Cuba, and
extreme measures are taken to avoid epidemics,"
the doctor added.
Though dengue is a concern across the Caribbean
and most of Latin America, it is arguably
more sensitive an issue in Cuba where health
care is a top "achievement" of
the Americas' only communist government.
And Cuba is now in unchartered territory
as Fidel Castro, 80, ceded power in July
for the first time in almost 48 years to
his brother, Raul Castro, 75, after intestinal
surgery.
"I was quite ill, I had been bitten
by a million mosquitos, I had some bleeding,
but now I am doing well, I have been recovering;
they gave me vitamins and they have been
here to spray," one woman, 43, a resident
of Havana's El Vedado neighborhood, said
privately.
She wound up in intensive care for four
days at Havana's Salvador Allende Hospital.
"I had 22 intravenous treatments in
the total 12 days that I was in the hospital,"
she explained.
The "Offensive against the Enemy"
-- the Aedes Aegypti mosquito known for
its striped legs -- campaign kicked off
a month ago in official media, urging Cubans
to work to eliminate any standing water
where the bug can breed.
Armed with spray cans of chemicals, young
people doing their military service make
spritzing rounds to Cuban homes each day.
Backing them up are workers at restaurants,
businesses and government offices.
High school (secondary) students, decked
out in red T-shirts and waving little flashlights,
make their own rounds in the dark of night
on Saturdays led by teachers, hunting for
any existing or potential mosquito breeding
grounds.
Vehicles that come from central and eastern
Cuba to the capital in the west are stopped
and sprayed.
Tuesday, General Jose Carrillo Gomez warned
that it was necessary to "make the
campaign stronger" adding that "we
must all the work, which is decisive
for the Revolution."
Fidel Castro, as he recovers in an undisclosed
hospital-like facility, is closely following
the details of the battle, his brother Raul
told the official newspaper Granma on Saturday.
Raul Castro and Politburo meanwhile
met with provincial party leaders in Havana
on gearing up the fight, Granma said.
The only way to fight dengue, according
to the World Health Organization, is to
fight the bug that transmits it, which breeds
in standing water as small as a puddle.
Dengue's common symptoms are high fever,
muscle aches, and headaches. The hemorrhagic
form of the disease can be fatal if left
untreated.
Cuba, Chile and Uruguay are the only countries
in Latin America that do not have endemic
dengue problems. Between 1977 and 2002,
however, Cuba had four epidemics and one
small outbreak.
The most recent epidemic in Cuba was between
June 2001 and March 2002, with 14,524 cases
recorded, 81 of them hemorrhagic, of whom
three people died, all in Havana, a study
found.
Cuba Protests U.S. Denying Visa Request
Yahoo! Asia News, September
26, 2006.
Cuba protested on Monday a U.S. decision
to deny a visa to its health minister, who
had planned to attend the annual meeting
of the Pan American Health Organization.
Dagoberto Rodriguez, Cuba's top diplomat
in the United States, said the U.S. action
"violated the letter and the spirit"
of the PAHO charter. He said it was the
second year in a row that the United States
has prevented Cuba's top health official
from attending the meeting.
In a statement to the opening session of
the meeting, Rodriguez called the U.S. policy
a "vulgar hoax."
The State Department had no comment, consistent
with its usual policy on visa decisions.
All countries in the hemisphere belong
to PAHO, whose headquarters is located in
Washington.
One Cuban dies in attempt to reach U.S.
AP, September 21, 2006.
MIAMI - Sixteen Cubans reached the United
States in a rickety, old boat, but one man
trying to cross the Florida Straits with
them died, the Coast Guard said Thursday.
The group reached Marquesas Key early Wednesday,
and the Coast Guard learned in interviews
with the migrants that one of their original
group was missing.
The body of a man in his 20s was recovered
at sea a few hours later, Coast Guard Petty
Officer James Judge said. The body was taken
to the coroner's office, and a cause of
death was not released.
The 16 Cubans were turned over to the U.S.
Border Patrol. The U.S. generally allows
Cubans who reach U.S. shores to stay, while
those found at sea are returned to Cuba.
Cuban Official: US Attacks Our Business
UNITED NATIONS, 20 (AP) -- A top Cuban
official said Wednesday that the United
States was spending more on harassing Cuba's
business dealings than on investigating
the finances of the terrorists who attacked
the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernandez told
ministers assembled for the U.N. General
Assembly meeting that the United States
is orchestrating "severe reprisals"
against companies doing business with Cuba.
"The Bush istration has stepped
up its brutally harsh measures against Cuba,
with new economic sanctions that further
intensify what is already the longest blockade
human history has ever known," he said.
"The very government of the United
States recognizes that it is spending more
today in persecuting and punishing those
who have business dealings with Cuba than
in monitoring the finances of those who
attacked the Twin Towers."
Lazo, the island's most powerful black
leader, is part of the collective leadership
ruling Cuba as Fidel Castro recovers from
intestinal surgery. Raul Castro has been
filling in for his brother as acting president.
In his speech, Lazo underlined Cuba's
for a country's right to use nuclear power
for peaceful purposes, a reference to Cuban
ally Iran, which is locked in a nuclear
standoff with the United States over its
uranium enrichment program.
He also said that despite the United States'
"acts of aggression and the criminal
blockade, the Cuban people shall never be
defeated."
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