image source, Reuters
Margaret Chan (left) and Roberto Morales Ojeda announced the dispatch of Cuban health professionals to Sierra Leone, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
Cuba announced that it will send more than 160 health workers to Sierra Leone to assist in the treatment of Ebola victims.
The medical assistance contingent, nurses, epidemiologists, as well as specialists in infection control, intensive care and social mobilization officials.
Health Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda said the first group of doctors and nurses would arrive in Sierra Leone next month.
The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, said that the assistance will have a significant impact because human resources were very important in the fight against the disease.
«I am extremely grateful for the generosity of the Cuban government and these health professionals for doing their part in our effort to contain the worst Ebola outbreak ever known,» Chan said at a news conference with Morales Ojeda in Geneva.
The director will highlight the worldwide recognition that Cuba has for training doctors and patients and for helping countries that are in the process of progress.
But I found that the number of new Ebola cases in West Africa was growing at a rate far greater than the capacity to treat them.
Some 2,300 people have died since the outbreak of the infection began in March.
The first Cuban health professionals are expected to arrive in Sierra Leone in the first week of October and stay there for six months. All have experience working in Africa.