Cuba registers gradual decrease in COVID-19 cases

 HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 14 (ACN) During the last three weeks Cuba has shown a gradual decrease in the number of positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, Francisco Duran Garcia, national director of epidemiology of the Cuban ministry of public health, acknowledged today.

At the official Monday press conference on the behavior of the current pandemic, the specialist pointed out that control measures, and above all vaccination, have been decisive in this reduction.

When comparing the evolution of the pandemic in Cuba through 2020 and 2021, especially with the high contagiousness of the variants of the virus that appeared in the latter, one notices that the restriction measures adopted at each moment have been achieving a control of the transmission, he said.

Up to this date of February, 14,332 positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 were diagnosed in the country, the Dr added, and in the last week a total of 7,172 new cases were confirmed.

In this period, the number of autochthonous and imported cases decreased for the third consecutive week; the country registered 7,048 autochthonous cases, equivalent to 98.3 % of the confirmed cases, and 124 imported cases from 20 countries.

Regarding pediatric cases, Duran Garcia referred that during the last two weeks there has been a decrease in 18 years of age and younger.

However, he reiterated the need to take care of children from zero to two years of age and warned about the after-effects of the disease in these patients.

The specialist indicated that in the most recent week, 1,554 pediatric cases were registered, which shows a reduction compared to previous weeks.

Duran Garcia regretted the death of 33 people in the country during the week, nine less than the previous one.

The expert insisted on the need to protect vulnerable groups and those with associated comorbidities in order to avoid the loss of human lives due to the disease.

Regarding the omicron variant, Duran Garcia mentioned that during the week, 28 new cases were identified in the country, for a total of 257 (222 Cubans and 35 foreigners).

To date, and since March 2020, Cuba has accumulated 1,061,524 confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2, 8,476 deaths due to COVID-19 and 1,048,238 recovered cases, a figure equivalent to 98.7% of the infections.