Cuban and US experts meet in Havana on mosquito-borne diseases

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 28 (acn) Experts from Cuba and the United States will participate from today until the 30th of this month at the Scientific Meeting on Arboviruses, which is part of the tasks included in the memorandum signed last June between the US Secretary of Health and Human Services and Cuba´s Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP by its Spanish acronym).

Dr. Ileana Morales, MINSAP National Director of Science and Technological Innovation, told ACN that scientists from both countries will show their studies and main research on zika and other arboviruses.
Headquartered at the Hotel Nacional, this high level meeting will be attended by renowned specialists from the Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute, an international reference in this field, as well as MINSAP and other Cuban and US scientific institutions.
The 1st Regional Meeting for the Surveillance and Control Strategy of arbovirosis took place last October, in which specialists and officials from some 30 nations debated and established guidelines for the control of arboviruses: dengue, zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever, among others.
According to statements by Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, 14.2 million cases of dengue have been recorded in the Americas, with some 7,000 deaths, in the first 15 years of the 21st century.
Brazil, Colombia and Mexico present the most critical situation and they together have 70 percent of dengue patients on the continent, she said.
Dr. Francisco Duran, MINSAP National Director of Epidemiology, reiterated that the Aedes aegypti mosquito is the cause of the four diseases: dengue, chikungunya, zika and yellow fever; the latter has not been present in Cuba since 1909, but it does it in other parts of the world and in some countries of the Americas.
Cuba stands out in the strategy of epidemiological surveillance and control of alboviruses, which includes vector control, research on these diseases and lab work, he stressed.