The
217 Cuban medical doctors who landed in South Africa over the weekend to
bolster local health-care workers in their efforts to flatten the Covid-19
curve must wait to be cleared before they can start work.
 |
| THE CONTINGENT of 217 Cuban health specialists arrive in South Africa on Sunday night to support efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19, after a request by President Cyril Ramaphosa to Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. |
The Cuban medical team have been sent
straight into quarantine at a Pretoria hotel, in line with the standard
protocol set for those travelling into the country during the Covid-19 crisis,
the Department of Health said.
Department spokesperson, Dr Lwazi Manzi,
said the Cuban medical brigade, who had been quarantined in Cuba before
travelling to South Africa, would be sent into quarantine at a Pretoria hotel
for a period that could last up to 14 days.
The team from Cuba, which landed at the
Waterkloof Air Force base on Sunday, consists of epidemiologists, family
physicians, biotechnology experts, health-care technology engineers, and
biostatisticians.
Currently, South Africa has 4793
identified positive cases of the coronavirus and 90 recorded deaths due to the
virus.
The KZN provincial government announced
on Sunday that Level 5 of the lockdown would likely remain intact in the
eThekwini region beyond April 30.
With the Cuban doctors now undergoing
quarantine, Manzi said once they are out of quarantine and have tested
negative, they would be deployed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to various spots
across the country.
Manzi said the Cubans being sent into
quarantine was part of the country’s regulations which stipulate that nobody
comes into the country without first undergoing quarantine.
“The quarantine may not necessarily be
14 days because they were already quarantined at home, so it’s really actually
about us testing them and then waiting for those test results,” Manzi said.
With Italy gripped by the virus and an
alarming death rate, Cuba also sent 52 of its medics to that country last month
as Italy battled to cope with a fast-paced rate of infection, and an increasing
death toll.
However, Manzi said the South Africa government
had requested the assistance of the Cubans because the country did not want to
first get to an infection rate and death toll as high as that experienced by
countries like Italy, Spain and the US.
“We’re not going to wait until we have
a crisis before doing what we need to do.
“Italy waited until they had a crisis
before they started calling for help and it’s the same with Spain,” Manzi said.
Cosatu said the arrival of the Cuban
medical team was a great act of altruistic solidarity from Cuba.
Cosatu’s international secretary Sonia
Mabunda-Kaziboni said Cuba had been a huge support to South Africa with the
Cuban medical internationalism programme from 1996 to 2002, which began with
the deployment of more than 450 Cuban doctors and medical lecturers.
“It extended to the enrolment of South
African students for medical training under the Nelson Mandela-Fidel Castro
collaboration. Under the auspices of the 2012 Agreement on Co-operation in the
Fields of Public Health and Medical Sciences, more than 3000 South African
students have received medical training in Cuba,” Mabunda-Kaziboni said.
The rising number in Covid-19 positive
cases and death toll in South Africa has also seen fresh calls by health union
Nehawu for the government to ensure that the implementation of the National
Health Insurance is expedited.
Union spokesperson Khaya Xaba said one
of the biggest lessons South Africa has to learn from the Covid-19 crisis is
the need for a singular health-care system.
He said it should replace the two
health-care systems in which one catered for the haves, and the other for the
have nots.
“We’ve seen private hospitals
struggling and being helped by the public health sector, so the government must
have one fund that goes into health, and not one that goes into private health
which governments funds 86%, and covers only a few patients in the country,
while the public one with only 14% covers most of the people,” Xaba said.
The union further said the intervention
of the Cuban medical brigade would be a shot in the arm for South Africa’s
efforts to stem the tide against new infections.
“With the new infections growing at an
alarming rate, the Cuban brigade could not have come at a better time. The
coronavirus has caused unprecedented damage to the economy coupled with an
unacceptable number of deaths, job losses, and loss of personal income of
millions of our people,” Xaba said.
He said South African doctors trained
in Cuba under the Mandela-Castro initiative were already working in public
health-care facilities around the country, with another 200 expected back in
the country by the end of the year. - Cape Times
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