GENEVA, May 25 (NNN-ACN) — Cuban Health Minister Jose Angel Portal Miranda and his Italian counterpart Orazio Schillaci penned a Memo of Understanding on bilateral cooperation in healthcare and medical sciences to further strengthen links between the two ministries.
At the meeting, which took place during the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Portal Miranda said that the accord backs the goal of Italy and Cuba to deepen cooperation in the benefit of their peoples.
Meanwhile, the Italian Health Minister thanked the assistance offered to his country’s regions of Lombardy and Piamonte in 2020 by the Cuban medical professionals with the Henry Reeve International Contingent. He stressed the island’s support in moments he described as the most critical in facing COVID-19 in Italy.
At present 63 Cuban health professionals are working in different Italian healthcare institutions, the Cuban Health Minister recalled. Portal also met on Tuesday with his counterparts from Egypt Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar and with the permanent Health secretary of Saint Kitts and Nevis Sharon Archibald.
In a separate meeting with the St. Kitts and Nevis delegation, Miranda reiterated Cuba’s willingness to strengthen and diversify cooperation links in health matters with St. Kitts and Nevis.
During an exchange with Sharon Archibald, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, Miranda insisted on the willingness to seek a greater impact on the work of Cuban doctors in that Caribbean country, especially in those regions with the greatest deficit of human resources.
Archibald thanked the Cuban medical collaboration that provides assistance in his country and expressed his interest in knowing in detail the characteristics of the functioning of the Cuban national health system.
To date, 61 health professionals have graduated in Cuba from that Caribbean island nation, with a surface area of 261 square kilometers and a population of 55,000, and there are currently 21 students studying in the classrooms.
The 76th World Health Assembly will conclude on May 30. — NNN-ACN
