From Ebola to Covid 19: Cuban medical missions

Audio 48:30

Door-to-door visit by Cuban medical staff to screen for suspected cases of Covid-19 © RFI / Domitille Piron

By: Caroline Paré Follow

50 min

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cuba has sent many back-up doctors around the world.

First in the Caribbean region, but also on the African continent (Togo, Angola, South Africa) and as far as Italy.

Publicity

The crisis has revived Cuban medical missions abroad: solidarity action, which is also a financial windfall for Havana.

A revival for this “Cuban-style medical diplomacy”, which Havana began in the 1960s and has long been denounced as a propaganda tool, by opponents of the Castro regime, led by the United States ... 

Domitille Piron

, RFI correspondent in Cuba, looks back on these emergency missions and longer-term cooperation program by following the course of an African student in medical school. 

Claire Bargelès

, correspondent in Johannesburg, met two Cuban doctors, temporarily assigned to South Africa, the country on the continent hardest hit by the coronavirus epidemic.

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  • Health and medicine

  • Coronavirus

  • Cuba

  • South Africa

Our guests

  • Domitille Piron

  • Claire Bargelès