PAHO Praises Cuba’s Management of COVID-19 Pandemic (+video)

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) highlighted on Tuesday Cuba’s work in reducing the incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic and praised the efficient tracking of the transmission chain, Prensa Latin reported.

PAHO’s crisis manager for Covid-19, Sylvain Aldighieri said in a continental online conference that “the Republic of Cuba, where contact tracing, combined with other activities, has allowed for a reduction in the incidence rate in recent weeks”.

The director explained that “we have a mosaic of people, as well as epidemiological profiles and trends in this region”, while highlighting the efficiency with which the group of Eastern Caribbean islands worked, which did not report cases for several weeks.

Regarding the tracking of infected people, she asserted that it is a part of the strategy based on the sequence: confirmed detection of the case, tracking of their contacts and quarantine of these, monitoring and testing (if symptoms appear), isolation and treatment.

She also stated that the success of tracing depends on the pre-existence of strong and solid primary health care programs and a field epidemiology system; on both she reported that PAHO offers member countries guidelines on the subject and technical assistance in tracing cases.