CubaPLUS Magazine

The Cuban vice Minister of health, Alfredo González, stood out the country’s achievements reached by the medicine sector during 2017, in a ceremony for the national day of the Science held in this capital. 

In the main ceremony of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) for the event’s anniversary, carried out in the Tropical Medicine Institute Pedro Kourí, the doctor sent a recognition to all professionals of the country. 

The vice Minister expressed that the Cuban Science’s day which is commemorated every year in January 15, is an homage to the thousands of scientists who have devoted their talent, energy and lives to the research development, the technological innovation and the progress of the country. 

Gonzalez emphasized that the results achieved in 2017 confirmed the priority given by the Cuban State to the health and to the science as an integral part of it.

Among the most important achievements in the island, the doctor mentioned the increase of life expectancy of men and women until 78,45 years. 

Also, he highlighted that last year the Caribbean nation also achieved the lowest infant mortality rate, record in the whole American continent: four for thousand born alive. 

That indicator summarizes the efforts and results of the Cuban revolution, now we have the challenge to reduces that indicator to 3.8, he pointed out. 

He added that 2017 was particularly intense for the strengthening of the clinical trials’ activity in the country, because today are in implementation 159 researches, 55 more than in 2016. 

The workers of this sector begin 2018 with new challenges to raise the health status of the population, to increase the quality and satisfaction with the services and to make the health system efficient and sustainable, assuring its advance, the MINSAP representative highlighted. 

The speaker stood out that the country has currently around 225 thousand professionals in the field of health and a scientific potential which reaches a total of 90 thousand specialists, masters and doctors in sciences. 

Likewise, in the ceremony for the Cuban Science’s day, also were handed out several awards to personalities and institutions with outstanding results in this field during the previous year. 

One of them was the Medal 150 Anniversary of the Cuba Academy of Sciences to the Medical Brigade Henry Reeve which in 2017 received the prize LEE Jong-Wook of the World Health Organization in recognition to the health care services in emergency situations to more than 3,5 million people in 21 countries devastated by disasters and epidemics, since its creation in September 2005. 

Besides, the MINSAP recognized to three of the most distinguished entities in the national scientific circle during the last year, these Institutions were the Tropical Medicine Institute Pedro Kourí, Institute of Inmunology and Haematology and the Center for Research and Rehabilitation of Hereditary Ataxias.