Serbian personalities back Nobel Prize for Cuban doctors

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 8 (ACN) Senior personalities of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts reported today that they sent a document to the Norwegian Nobel Committee with detailed arguments in support of the nomination of Cuba's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

Among the actions of the Cuban authorities in favor of health for all, they highlight the creation in 1998 of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in which 29,749 doctors from 123 countries around the world, including the United States, were qualified, underlines the dispatch dated in Belgrade.

Their letter also praises Operation Milagro to treat glaucoma and cataracts, with more than four million free surgeries performed on patients from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, as well as the medical care that Cuba provided from 1990 to 2011 to more than 25,000 people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986, most of them children, and the deployment of 2,500 health workers in Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake who treated 1.7 million people and saved thousands.

The "Henry Reeve", they wrote, “also fought Ebola in Africa in 2014 in response to the World Health Organization (WHO) appeal and gave assistance in disaster areas in several countries.” They also mention Cuba's program to tackle COVID-19 at home and throughout the world, including Europe, despite almost six decades of U.S. blockade.

“For such an incomparable contribution to humanity in times when many are suffering, particularly during the current COVID-19 pandemic, we propose to award the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade,” states the document signed by the 22 academics and professors of the prestigious Serbian institution.