Newly graduated medical students to fight COVID-19 in Cuba’s worst hit provinces

NUEVA GERONA, Cuba, Aug 11 (ACN) Claudia Silveira Cañamero is one of the members of the Ernesto Che Guevara Contingent of young graduates from the Isle of Youth who will soon be fighting the pandemic in the most affected provinces.

Moments before leaving for Havana, she told ACN that they are yet to know their destination, but they will certainly go to wherever the Government thinks that they are most needed and useful.

“I chose to save human lives by profession and I was trained to cope at some point with a serious situation like this one," she said. Dr. Silveira is one of the 15 doctors intensively trained on the Isle of Youth to put their knowledge at the disposal of this effort to tackle contagion.

Headed by surgeon Dariel Rodríguez Soto, the Contingent is made up of a group of professionals who completed one year of internship in the specialties of Pediatric Intensive Care, Surgery, Pediatrics, Nephrology and Anesthesia.

Now that the fight against COVID-19 has sped up and new measures are being implemented to prevent and control infection, Dr. Silveira, 20, holds to be proud of her training in the Isle of Youth, where she learned about this lethal disease, and praises the effectiveness of the measures taken by the authorities, the work of the health staff, and the cooperation of the people.

Israel Velázquez Batista, municipal director of Public Health, highlighted the attitude of the Contingent members, whose discipline and devotion will make it possible to fulfill their duties in any of the regions where the Delta strain, the most contagious and lethal yet, is currently circulating.