Cuban travelers represent the majority of imported COVID-19 cases into the country

HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 19 (ACN) Despite the favorable results in the management and control of imported cases with COVID-19, Cuban travelers constitute the majority of patients infected from abroad with the infectious disease, said an expert of the Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP by its Spanish acronym).

In statements to the Cuban News Agency, Dr. Carmelo Trujillo Machado, head of MINSAP's International Health Control Department, pointed out that of the 42,364 people who arrived in the country from February 6 to April 16, just 909 were positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, 83 % of them (759) Cubans.

The specialist pointed out that a large part of the nationals who traveled to Russia for different reasons returned positive for SARS-CoV-2; the same happened with more than three quarters of the Cuban nationals who returned from Spain.

In the midst of the complex international epidemiological situation, traveling is a risk, he commented, and detailed that other countries where Cubans have a high possibility of returning infected are the United States, Mexico, Panama and Jamaica.

The decrease in flights from abroad affects Cuba economically, but currently our priority is to reduce the incidence of the disease throughout the national territory, Trujillo Machado concluded.