Medical brigade that fought COVID-19 in Suriname returns to Cuba.

HAVANA, Cuba, May 31 (ACN) The brigade of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Situations of Disasters and Serious Epidemics that worked in Suriname, returned on Sunday to Cuba after contributing to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in that South American nation.

Upon their arrival at Havana's José Martí International Airport, the 31 collaborators were received virtually by Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic.

The President said that this is one of the Cuban medical brigades that has defended our convictions of solidarity and our way of conceiving public health as a right of all from other latitudes.

He also pointed out that the collaborators worked intensely for more than 14 months to help this Suriname.

Dr. Marianela Ortega Gallardo, head of the team, said that since their arrival in Suriname on March 20, 2020, they were in the red zone in both state and field hospitals.

It was hard work, but Cuban doctors have experience in combating epidemics; before leaving, we were trained and once there, we joined the work with the nationals and the Dutch professionals who joined later, she said.

She also pointed out that the most difficult thing was the language, since English is an intermediate language and not all the population mastered it, so they had to learn Dutch, their official language, as well as other dialects.

Ortega Gallardo said that during these months they have been informed of everything concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, whether in terms of treatment protocols, research, associated complications and genetic variants.

The Cuban professionals were in the Academic Hospital of Paramaribo and the Regional Hospital of Wanica, in the capital, and in a rural hospital in the interior of the country, and attended 20,335 patients, of whom 14,000 were hospitalized, and carried out 97,000 nursing procedures.

They also worked in isolation units for suspected or positive cases of coronavirus, in medical guards, collective discussions of cases of hospitalized patients and participated in the investigation of COVID-19 suspects and in the collection of samples for diagnosis.

They also provided advice to the Ministry of Health on the preparation of protocols for action, adaptation of quarantine facilities and the hospital isolation unit, as well as the creation of flowcharts and educational talks on care and prevention of the pandemic.

During the mission, four members of the brigade were part of the National Malaria Control Program and COVID 19, which advised the Minister of Health, for which they were recognized by the director of the program in Suriname.