Venereal Disease Eradicated in Cuba, Scientists Confirmed

[Judi Lynn]

Venereal Disease Eradicated in Cuba, Scientists Confirmed

SANTA CLARA, Cuba, Jun 6 (acn) Congenital syphilis, a disease that affects some 100,000 births annually in Latin America has been eradicated in Cuba thanks to the National Mother-and-Child program, said doctor Alfredo Abreu, president of the Cuban Dermatology Society.

Abreu, who also is a professor at the Manuel Fajardo Hospital in Havana City, told ACN news agency that the Latin American and Pan-American Office has set up a program aimed at eradicating the pathology in Latin America by 2015, since that goal has already turned into reality in Cuba.

Abreu added that this was one of the subjects highly considered during the National Congress on Dermatology, underway in central Villa Clara province, with the attendance of 150 professors and other experts from 12 Cuban provinces, who shared useful experiences.

He also said that they discussed topics related to benign and malign skin tumors, different therapeutic options that Cuban dermatologists have in treating skin cancer, which one of the most frequent cancer varieties in the Caribbean nation.

The doctor explained that when diagnosis is applied at an early stage of the disease, its treatment works and the lesion is eliminated without any risk to the patient’s life.

http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2009/0606ERRADICANENCUBA.htm

[roody]

1. Excellent sex ed and reproductive care has also contributed to

eradicating venereal disease.

[Mika]

2. Not good in Florida.

STD Florida Trends & Statistics
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/disease_ctrl/std/trends/florida.html


Not much firm ground to stand on while criticizing Cuba's system.

[Texano78704]

3. So...

Will it have a positive effect on sex tourism?

[Mika]

4. What the hell does that mean?

Please explain what you mean by "a positive effect".

Thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

5. I couldn't make any sense of it, either! n/t

[Mika]

6. I have my suspicions..

.. and they aren't good.

Still waiting for some clarification.

---

[romy]

7. Related essay...

See http://monthlyreview.org/090112brouwer.php

The Cuban Revolutionary Doctor
The Ultimate Weapon of Solidarity
Steve Brouwer

On August 19, 1960, Che Guevara gave a talk to the Cuban Militia “On Revolutionary Medicine”:

A few months ago, here in Havana, it happened that a group of newly graduated doctors did not want to go into the country’s rural areas and demanded remuneration before they would agree to go…

But what would have happened if instead of these boys, whose families generally were able to pay for their years of study, others of less fortunate means had just finished their schooling and were beginning the exercise of their profession? What would have occurred if two or three hundred campesinos had emerged, let us say by magic, from the university halls?

What would have happened, simply, is that the campesinos would have run, immediately and with unreserved enthusiasm, to help their brothers… What would have happened is what will happen in six or seven years, when the new students, children of workers and campesinos, receive professional degrees of all kinds…

If we medical workers—and permit me to use once again a title which I had forgotten some time ago—are successful, if we use this new weapon of solidarity…

Today, the vision of Che, who as a young Argentine medical graduate had ventured to Guatemala because he hoped to contribute to revolutionary change, has finally been realized. Cuba and its doctors have made a tremendous commitment to “solidarity” on the international level, and the “new weapon” is being successfully deployed. In fact, I can testify, from my own experience living in a village in the mountains of Venezuela last year, that Che was not exaggerating the revolutionary outcome: the campesinos are already running, “immediately and with unreserved enthusiasm, to help their brothers.”