STATEMENT BY THE HEAD OF THE CUBAN DELEGATION TO THE 57TH WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY, DR. JOSÉ RAMÓN BALAGUER, AT THE GENERAL DEBATE, 19 MAY 2004

Geneva, 19 May 2004

Mr. President, distinguished delegates, observers and other participants in this 57th World Health Assembly:

We are living in a time characterized by the appearance of new emerging and re-emerging diseases. All of this takes place amid a worldwide setting of greater impoverishment, famine, millions of people without basic healthcare, social inequality, an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor countries and untold damage to their economies, societies and the environment on account of wars. Poor countries are the hardest hit.

Even when these realities suggest that we refer to issues not directly related to health, we will elaborate on some considerations about fundamental matters like AIDS – since we believe that it is the most pressing health problem at this point in time – and other subjects of great interest in this regard.

There are 40 million people in the world with HIV/AIDS that have no access to an efficient treatment. Most of them will not survive the next ten years. Up until now, the epidemic has taken the lives of over 20 million people; of those, 3 million passed away in 2003 alone. There are nearly 14 million children who have become orphans as a result of this disease, most of them in Africa. If this ever-increasing trend is not stopped, by 2010 there will 25 million orphan children.

Unfortunately, we still have no vaccine against AIDS, unlike those for other infectious diseases. However, there are effective treatments available that could make it possible to improve the quality of life of the people affected, though they are not within the reach of the needy.

Until December 2002, only 3,000 of the 5 to 6 million people in an advanced stage of the disease had access to the anti-retroviral treatment in developing countries – and it all points to the fact that less than 1 million people will have access to these treatments by late 2005, thus accounting for a sixth of those requiring it.

As part of the world strategy in the health sector for HIV/AIDS, the access to anti-retroviral treatments appears as one of the basic components of an effective response to the epidemic. It is an emergency to reach the objective, as proposed by the WHO, of providing efficient anti-retroviral treatment to no less than three million people in developing countries by 2005.

In my country, as a key strategy in facing the AIDS pandemic, we rely on a Prevention and Control Program that integrates all the components suggested by the WHO: Epidemiological Surveillance, Prevention, Care, Diagnosis and Research, as well as full and free access to the complete anti-retroviral treatments, which medicaments are nationally produced.

Mr. President:

The Government of the United States, in open defiance of International Law, has just adopted, last 6 May, new and brutal economic and political measures against our country and against the Cubans who live in the United States in order to further tighten its aggressive and hostile policy on Cuba.

These new actions by the Bush Administration are aimed at destabilizing the Cuban society, overthrowing Cuba’s current Government and imposing a new political and economic system in my country against the sovereign will of its people. To that end, they resort to measures that seek to subdue, through hunger and disease, the unwavering attitude of the heroic people of Cuba – that has defended its independence and sovereignty in the course of all these years.

One of the new measures indicates that once Cuba’s present Government is toppled all children under 5 years of age would be vaccinated. It is ludicrous to hear future promises of inoculating children in a country where preventive medicine and vaccination boast the highest levels in the world, particularly coming from a country where tens of millions of men, women and children lack healthcare and there are more deaths of children per 1,000 live births than in Cuba.

Perhaps it is not known that my country uses 10 types of vaccines that protect our children against 13 diseases, with an inoculation coverage of 95%. As a result of this strategy, in the last 40 years we have managed to eliminate 6 diseases: polio in 1962, diphtheria in 1979, measles in 1993, whooping cough in 1994, rubella and parotiditis in 1995, as well as 2 severe clinical forms of tuberculous meningitis and neonatal tetanus.

Furthermore, from 1988, we do the vaccination against the Meningitis Meningococcica Type B, unique in the world, and C, with a vaccine of National production to all persons below 30 years. From 1991, we also applies vaccines against Hepatitis B to persons below 25 years and to risk groups like persons suffering diabetes, nurses and family physicians, workers of blood Banks, workers in institutions of mental ills, prisoners and persons and contacts with sexual transmitted diseases with a Cuban vaccine produced by genetic engineering. And also we do vaccination against Homophiles Influenzae Type B with a Cuban vaccine produced by Chemical Synthesis who is unique in the world.

Really, United States is trying to destroy these masterpiece that constitute a sacred cult to the rights of the human being.

It is significant to note that the world’s 26 most developed countries, with a gross domestic per capita 20 to 40 times higher than Cuba’s, have still not been able to reach such universal vaccination results in their respective populations.

All that effort has been made by the Cuban people and despite the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the US Government on Cuba for 45 years now.

Mr. President:

As an expression of the spirit of solidarity of our people, Cuba has stated to the United Nations and to the Community of Caribbean States its willingness to send doctors and other health personnel to both Africa and the Caribbean to fight AIDS, as well as its readiness to establish medicine and nursing schools to sustain such cooperation.

Cuba currently has over 17,000 doctors and other health personnel rendering their services in 65 countries. These people deal with the health problems indicated by the States where they are located, particularly the problems in the fight against AIDS. Already, nine schools of medicine have been established.

On the other hand, in the last 40 years Cuba has graduated more than 40,000 youths from over 100 Third World countries as university professionals and qualified technicians with no cost at all – 30,000 of which come from Africa. Likewise, throughout this time, more than 70,000 Cuban doctors and health workers who have saved millions of lives provided voluntary and free-of-charge services in 94 countries.

If an estimate is made of what would have to be paid in the US and Europe by these youths who have studied in Cuba, the equivalent will be a donation of more than US$ 450 million every year. Without including the services offered by over 17,000 doctors and health personnel in the world’s farthest and most difficult places, the estimate would be extremely significant.

We make available to the Member States our modest experience in the health field and, particularly, in the fight against AIDS.

Thank you very much.