Zürcher Nachrichten - Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines

EUR -
AED 4.322268
AFN 82.375198
ALL 97.820014
AMD 451.78854
ANG 2.106086
AOA 1079.109066
ARS 1480.955073
AUD 1.783601
AWG 2.12115
AZN 1.998322
BAM 1.962725
BBD 2.376034
BDT 143.447962
BGN 1.954727
BHD 0.443605
BIF 3447.971522
BMD 1.176782
BND 1.503537
BOB 8.131865
BRL 6.492422
BSD 1.176777
BTN 101.675313
BWP 15.705347
BYN 3.85117
BYR 23064.928952
BZD 2.36379
CAD 1.601147
CDF 3396.192855
CHF 0.932794
CLF 0.028454
CLP 1116.248879
CNY 8.425508
CNH 8.415269
COP 4751.904916
CRC 594.495056
CUC 1.176782
CUP 31.184725
CVE 110.76465
CZK 24.587725
DJF 209.137823
DKK 7.463693
DOP 71.085202
DZD 152.544512
EGP 57.775771
ERN 17.651731
ETB 162.50519
FJD 2.631517
FKP 0.870467
GBP 0.866965
GEL 3.189371
GGP 0.870467
GHS 12.249841
GIP 0.870467
GMD 84.727856
GNF 10186.225772
GTQ 9.03206
GYD 246.073459
HKD 9.237457
HNL 31.008077
HRK 7.531521
HTG 154.41812
HUF 398.509022
IDR 19149.304228
ILS 3.921044
IMP 0.870467
INR 101.666971
IQD 1541.584537
IRR 49557.234235
ISK 142.802446
JEP 0.870467
JMD 188.766031
JOD 0.834333
JPY 172.154396
KES 152.39661
KGS 102.819093
KHR 4730.663635
KMF 494.843557
KPW 1059.165111
KRW 1616.945196
KWD 0.359024
KYD 0.980656
KZT 633.31185
LAK 25377.306008
LBP 105380.835944
LKR 355.03021
LRD 236.532948
LSL 20.605539
LTL 3.474731
LVL 0.711824
LYD 6.366462
MAD 10.5778
MDL 19.899126
MGA 5213.14493
MKD 61.548603
MMK 2470.184178
MNT 4220.38234
MOP 9.514272
MRU 46.85937
MUR 53.366922
MVR 18.128018
MWK 2043.481966
MXN 21.823635
MYR 4.974848
MZN 75.266687
NAD 20.605626
NGN 1801.936165
NIO 43.246878
NOK 11.891483
NPR 162.684463
NZD 1.94651
OMR 0.452469
PAB 1.176777
PEN 4.1846
PGK 4.860404
PHP 66.647082
PKR 335.647598
PLN 4.248623
PYG 8814.099154
QAR 4.284189
RON 5.066751
RSD 117.12629
RUB 92.25858
RWF 1693.977818
SAR 4.414838
SBD 9.749752
SCR 17.228153
SDG 706.653239
SEK 11.194328
SGD 1.501945
SHP 0.924766
SLE 27.007419
SLL 24676.536668
SOS 672.524794
SRD 42.890234
STD 24357.013336
STN 24.894825
SVC 10.296461
SYP 15300.474049
SZL 20.605093
THB 37.845772
TJS 11.291179
TMT 4.130505
TND 3.372363
TOP 2.756138
TRY 47.61205
TTD 7.986144
TWD 34.45642
TZS 3033.161124
UAH 49.206645
UGX 4224.996991
USD 1.176782
UYU 47.30752
UZS 15045.159135
VES 141.535579
VND 30766.967727
VUV 141.285399
WST 3.102102
XAF 658.29367
XAG 0.029954
XAU 0.000347
XCD 3.180312
XCG 2.120774
XDR 0.817309
XOF 656.644614
XPF 119.331742
YER 283.545712
ZAR 20.64766
ZMK 10592.457711
ZMW 27.331014
ZWL 378.923353
  • RIO

    0.2900

    64.62

    +0.45%

  • CMSC

    -0.0400

    22.43

    -0.18%

  • SCU

    0.0000

    12.72

    0%

  • GSK

    1.0100

    38.03

    +2.66%

  • RBGPF

    0.9700

    68

    +1.43%

  • AZN

    2.5200

    73

    +3.45%

  • BTI

    0.1500

    52.37

    +0.29%

  • NGG

    -1.6300

    72.65

    -2.24%

  • SCS

    0.2100

    10.68

    +1.97%

  • RYCEF

    0.2000

    13.5

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    1.2000

    88.35

    +1.36%

  • CMSD

    -0.0300

    22.89

    -0.13%

  • BP

    0.1900

    32.71

    +0.58%

  • JRI

    0.0000

    13.21

    0%

  • BCE

    0.2200

    24.6

    +0.89%

  • VOD

    -0.0200

    11.3

    -0.18%

  • RELX

    0.4100

    53.09

    +0.77%

Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines
Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines / Photo: ADALBERTO ROQUE - AFP

Bitter pill: Cuba runs low on life-saving medicines

Cuban Jessica Rodriguez never knows if she will find the medicines that keep her four-year-old son alive in a country that has all but run out of essential drugs.

Text size:

On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs.

Rodriguez, who left her job as a physiotherapist to care for her sickly son, receives a monthly state grant of less than $12. Her husband's salary is not much more.

And as Cuba sinks ever deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades -- with critical shortages also of food and fuel, regular power blackouts and rampant inflation -- Rodriguez fears that one day the drugs may run out altogether.

"It drives me crazy," the 27-year-old told AFP at her home in Havana's Santa Fe neighborhood as her son Luis Angelo, watched a cartoon on her mobile.

"Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life."

Luis Angelo was born with a deformed esophagus, and while he waits to receive a transplant, breathes through a tracheostomy and eats though a tube inserted into his stomach. He is also asthmatic, has a heart condition, and suffers epileptic fits.

The boy takes seven different drugs daily, and needs a variety of tubes, syringes and other equipment to administer them.

Cuba, reputed for supplying highly trained medical doctors to other countries and for its advanced domestic pharmaceutical industry, has long counted vaccines and medical services among its top exports.

Under US sanctions since 1962, and hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that all but tanked its tourism industry, the communist country is now no longer medically self-sufficient.

Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300 million needed to import the raw materials it needed to produce hundreds of critical medicines.

- 'There's nothing' -

In Havana, and further afield, pharmacy shelves are bare and hospitals lack basic supplies such as gauze, suturing thread, disinfectant and oxygen.

"There are days when there's nothing," a doctor in the capital told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Cuba's healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal.

Patients who require chronic medicine are issued with a document known as a "tarjeton," which allows them access to subsidized medicines.

Luis Angelo has a "tarjeton," but it is of little use if pharmacies don't have the drugs, said his mom.

On the black market, she is forced to pay $3 to $4 for a blister sheet of pills -- about a quarter of the average monthly Cuban salary at the unofficial exchange rate.

"The price is cruel," Rodriguez told AFP.

- 'Ray of hope' -

Confronted with the ever-worsening medicine shortage, the government has since 2021 allowed travelers to bring back food and medicines in their luggage -- though not for resale.

Some of these drugs are feeding a black market that profits from the desperately infirm with sales via WhatsApp or internet sites.

Other sites, however, offer drugs for free or barter them for food.

In the NGO sphere, projects have also emerged to provide medicines to Cubans free of charge.

One, dubbed Palomas, has helped tens of thousands of people since its creation in Havana in 2021.

It relies on medicines that people have "left over from a treatment, or were brought by someone from abroad," coordinator Sergio Cabrera told AFP.

Every day, in 13 WhatsApp groups, Palomas publishes a list of medicines it has available, and another list of those it needs.

One beneficiary was 32-year-old dentist Ibis Montalban, who said she managed to get her mother's chronic diabetes medication through Palomas, adding: "thank you, thank you, thank you."

Cabrera says it is hard to witness the suffering of people in need.

"Many people cry here, and many times we cry with them," he said, grateful that Palomas can at least offer " a ray of hope."

A.P.Huber--NZN