Cuba Chairs World Health Assembly for the First Time

Cuba will chair, for the first time, the World Health Assembly, the 67th edition of which will be held on May 19-24 in Geneva, announced an official of the Cuban Public Health Ministry (MINSAP).

In a conversation with ACN, Doctor Antonio Gonzalez, head of the department of international organizations of the MINSAP, explained that Cuba was selected, to a large extent, due to the results and the great repercussion of health actions in the country and in other parts of the world.

Cuba has practically met all the Development Goals of the Millennium, since mortality rate in 2013 was 4.2 per every 1,000 live births, the lowest in the Americas, including those of Canada and the United States, as well as the mother mortality rate, 21 per every 100,000, which is among the lowest in Latin America, he underlined.

In addition, the AIDS epidemics, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria have been controlled, specified the expert, and highlighted that the first disease is not a health problem, as it happens in other nations, and that antiretroviral medicines are guaranteed to persons needing them.
With the vaccination campaigns carried out on the island we have eliminated other transmissible diseases, such as poliomyelitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, neonatal tetanus and rubella, by way of a vaccination scheme that protect children against 13 diseases, he stated.