Efforts to tackle wave of COVID-19 infections in eastern Cuba

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Jul 7 (ACN) In view of the territorial dispersion of the new coronavirus and the increase in the speed of transmission of the Wuhan, South Africa, United Kingdom and California COVID-19 variants, health authorities in this province are working hard to stop the fourth wave of contagion.

“Medical teams are being reinforced with trained technical staff to reinforce—and enforce—the current health protocols,” according to provincial health director María Eugenia García.

“We are tracing people with possible symptoms with a view to their isolation based on the established classification system for suspected cases and their contacts,” she said. “The use of Umelisa SARS-Cov-2, a Cuban diagnosis system developed by the Immunoassay Center of the BioCubaFarma group, will contribute to this end and give the country greater autonomy in the fight against the pandemic.”

Although the ultimate confirmation will always come from the real-time PCR test, the use of this technology will optimize laboratory trials and facilitate population studies to get ahead of the coronavirus.

The new strains considerably speed up the patient’s cellular deterioration and stage of severity, which is why the province is working to expand the health coverage in the midst of a delicate situation marked by an average 200 cases per day in the last two weeks.

Commander of the Revolution and Deputy Prime Minister Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, head of the national commission that joined the Temporary Working Group for the fight against COVID-19, has been in Santiago de Cuba for over a week. On Tuesday, Cuba’s second largest city reported 340 cases, an all-time high for a day since the onset of the disease in March 2020.