Oropouche in Cuba
Excerpts from an El Pais article
The media outlet, El Pais, recently published an article entitled, Oropouche virus alerts Cuba: cases increase due to lack of transparency, and here I would like to highlight a few excerpts.
This disease, which is transmitted by biting midges and mosquito bites, has found fertile ground in Cuba for its expansion. The government has not provided data, but there are reports of Cubans who have died after being diagnosed with the disease.
As of today (August 18), the virus is already present in all of the country's provinces, with greater force in rural and semi-rural areas. Cubans, who have already had to deal with epidemics such as Zika, chikungunya, H1N1 influenza, SARS-CoV-2, avian flu, monkeypox and the many cases of dengue that are reported daily, have become alarmed not only by the presence of a virus about which very little is known, but also by the scarce resources the country has to deal with the disease.
Although the government has not yet made public the official number of infected people, the World Health Organization said in June that since the MINSAP reported the first outbreak of the disease in the province of Santiago de Cuba on May 27, a total of 74 cases had been registered in the country, of which 36 were men and 38 women. But that was two months ago, so it is estimated that the figures today are much higher.
Several complaints on social media claim that the Cuban government is hiding the real numbers of Oropouche patients, calling the disease “febrile syndrome.” The outlook is discouraging in a country where, at least in the province of Guantánamo, 150 “febrile cases” are reported per week, according to official sources. One of the cases that has captured the attention of the independent press was that of 22-year-old Richard Daniel Nieves Chaveco, who was admitted to the Ambrosio Grillo Hospital in Santiago de Cuba with symptoms of Oropouche fever and died three days later.
The fact that “very little is known about the consequences” that the infection can leave, as stated by Dr. Carilda Peña García, deputy minister of MINSAP, makes many people fear the presence of the virus in a country that is going through its worst health crisis, with a shortage not only of doctors, but also of resources in hospitals or availability of medicines in pharmacies.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged that the “shortage of medicines” would continue this year, and the biopharmaceutical business group BioCubaFarma stated that in July there was a shortage of 251 medicines manufactured in the country.
The lack of fuel is another cause that contributes to the spread of Oropouche in Cuba. Dr. Durán himself recently stated that the country does not have insecticides or fuel to carry out fumigation campaigns against mosquitoes, which tend to be particularly bothersome during blackout hours. There have been many complaints in recent times about the accumulation of garbage throughout the country, and especially in Havana, where there is not only no fuel, but also no trucks to remove the enormous garbage dumps that grow on every corner. A report by the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit ( OCAC ) states that in the city, where 23,000 cubic meters of garbage are produced daily, the authorities only collect 68%, while some 7,600 cubic meters remain scattered throughout the capital, where many cases of dengue have been reported.
Florida has reported 20 travel associated Oropouche fever cases year to date, all from Cuba.