US blocks sale of ventilators to Cuba after acquiring medical companies.

[Judi Lynn]

STEVE SWEENEY TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2020
US blocks sale of ventilators to Cuba after acquiring medical companies.



Cuban doctors form up during a farewell ceremony as they get ready to leave for Italy to help with the new coronavirus pandemic, in Havana, Cuba, last Sunday

WASHINGTON has been accused of showing “contempt for life and hatred of the Cuban people” after it bought up companies making ventilators and immediately banned them from exporting the machines to Cuba and Venezuela.

Cuba said it had tried to obtain medical supplies from 60 US companies for the treatment of coronavirus patients but had been ignored by all but two, with the US blockade restricting even emergency material.

The Cuban government said that in “another twist of this genocidal, inhumane policy,” US firm Vyaire Medical had acquired ventilator manufacturers IMTMedical and Acutronic, which immediately announced and end to all dealings with the socialist island.

“Unfortunately, the corporate guideline we have today is to suspend all commercial relations with Medicuba,” the companies said in a statement.

More:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/us-blocks-sale-ventilators-cuba-after-acquiring-medical-companies

Also posted in LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142470313

[mr_lebowski]

1. There's a rather huge paradox in here somewhere (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

2. Cuba accuses the United States of preventing its purchases of medicines and respirators Internatio

Cuba accuses the United States of preventing its purchases of medicines and respirators | International
April 14, 2020 04



More information
Cuba denounces that the United States embargo policy is preventing its purchases of medicines and respirators, while continuing to send medical brigades abroad to collaborate in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. As the Cuban Chancellery reported on Monday, two medical companies that habitually supplied the island with artificial ventilation equipment, essential for the treatment of serious cases of coronavirus, suspended their commercial relations with the island after being acquired by an American corporation.

According to the official press, it is the Swiss manufacturer IMT Medical and the company Acutronic. These companies became part of the American corporation Vyaire Medical in 2018, and after the merger they expressed their inability to continue doing business with Cuba. “Unfortunately, the corporate guideline we have today is to suspend the entire commercial relationship with Medicuba; the only way we can resume joint work is through a license from OFAC [Oficina de Controle de Ativos Estrangeiros] issued by the United States Department of the Treasury and which we do not yet have, “the companies notified the Cuban state company responsible for importing medical supplies, said Eugenio Martínez, former ambassador for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. from Cuba in Spain.

The Havana government accuses Washington of systematically hampering access to medicines and medical supplies the island needs, which forces it to acquire them in much more distant markets, such as China, by paying for transportation and suffering unnecessary delays. “There is a group of resources that we have acquired and that if we could buy in the USA it would favor us, because it is a much closer market”, stated the vice president of Medicuba, Lázaro Silva.

According to the newspaper Granma, a donation of masks, detection kits and respirators by Chinese businessman Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba company – who has donated large quantities of these products to countries in Europe, Asia, the USA and Latin America, affected by Covid-19 – could not reach the island. The North American transport company hired to carry out the shipment “gave up on doing so at the last moment,” says Havana, saying that the current embargo prohibits the service. The authorities say that last year losses to the health system through sanctions reached $ 160 million (816 million reais), so they call for an immediate lifting of the embargo to better face the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, Cuba continues with its policy of medical diplomacy. On Monday a second health brigade arrived in Italy, made up of 21 doctors and 17 nurses who will work in Turin, a city severely affected by the pandemic. The team, made up of intensive care specialists, epidemiologists, pulmonologists and comprehensive doctors, adds to the contingent of 53 health professionals who are part of the brigade sent to Lombardy at the end of March. Most of the brigade’s doctors and health professionals have previously served in disaster situations and international health crises, including the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

More:
https://www.time24.news/t24/2020/04/cuba-accuses-the-united-states-of-preventing-its-purchases-of-medicines-and-respirators-international.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. Covid-19: Cuba Deserves Relief From US Sanctions

Humanitarian deterrence of the virus, not Cold War–era regime change, should be the top priority of US foreign policy.
By Peter Kornbluh Twitter

MARCH 31, 2020

On March 25, as a team of Cuban doctors and medical technicians set up field hospitals in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy to treat thousands of Italians infected with Covid-19, the State Department issued an absurd warning, via Twitter, against accepting Cuban humanitarian support. “Host countries seeking Cuba’s help for #COVID-19 should scrutinize agreements and end labor abuses,” the message stated. “#Cuba offers its international medical missions to those afflicted with #COVID-19 only to make up the money it lost when countries stopped participating in the abusive program,” a reference to right-wing governments, such as those in Brazil and Bolivia, which under US pressure last year kicked out thousands of Cuban doctors providing medical services—a decision that has come back to haunt the populations of those countries as the coronavirus spreads.

Never mind that the 52 members of the Cuban medical team in Italy are risking their own lives to save those of citizens of a major European nation that is part of the NATO alliance. Or that Cuba, with its highly successful track record of developing antiviral drugs and providing rapid-response support for victims of epidemics and natural disasters, is a much-needed ally in the international struggle against the worst threat the world has confronted in recent history. For the Trump administration, scoring political points in Florida with crass, unwarranted attacks on Cuba’s humanitarian commitment remains a top priority.

But in this “dire moment of dread and pestilence,” as the writer Ariel Dorfman has described our current crisis, it is obvious that US political and foreign policy priorities must fundamentally change. With the survival of the world at stake, Washington’s punitive efforts to roll back the Cuban revolution have never seemed so petty, and so abjectly counterproductive to real US national security interests, as they do now. Rather than condemn Cuba’s humanitarian contributions to fighting the virus around the world, Washington should be actively supporting them. The most immediate way to do that is to suspend US sanctions that severely compromise Cuba’s efforts to safeguard its citizens at home as well as bring medical services to so many others abroad.

But unlike most nations, Cuba’s ability to confront the pandemic is hobbled by severe US sanctions that have escalated under the Trump administration. The trade embargo, almost six decades old, continues to hamper Cuba’s financial transactions and its ability to export and import needed materials. Among other punitive measures, the Trump administration has effectively penalized foreign shipping companies ferrying cargo from other countries to Cuba, impeding the flow of oil, foodstuffs, and other commerce critical to the daily needs of Cuba’s citizenry. Even before the coronavirus crisis hit, the Cuban economy was experiencing chronic shortages. There is such a lack of textiles on the island, for example, that the Cuban government has called upon its citizens to manufacture cloth face masks at home to mitigate the spread of the virus.

More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-cuba-sanctions-aid/

[Judi Lynn]

4. From Cuba,Blockade: U.S. Company buys key lung ventilator manufacturing firms for COVID-19

Blockade: U.S. Company buys key lung ventilator manufacturing firms for COVID-19 and suspends sales to Cuba. and suspends sales to Cuba.

APR
13
2020

Cuba will not be able to acquire pulmonary ventilators from several of its usual suppliers as two firms manufacturing this medical equipment have been purchased by a US company. These devices are key elements in the care of serious and critical cases of COVID-19.

The company Medicuba, exporter and importer for the Ministry of Public Health, was notified that IMT Medical AG and Acutronic manufacturers had been acquired by the US company Vyaire Medical Inc., based in Illinois, and therefore informed that "the corporate guideline we have today is to suspend all business relations with Medicuba."

The denunciation was made on the Twitter account of the General Director of Latin America and the Caribbean of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex), Eugenio Martínez Enríquez.

Several suppliers informed #Cuba MEDICUBA company that they could not deliver contracted pulmonary ventilators because IMT MEDICAL AG and ACUTRONIC manufacturers had been purchased by Vyaire Medical Inc, a company based in Illinois, USA and the blockade prevents them from doing so.

http://misiones.minrex.gob.cu/en/articulo/blockade-us-company-buys-key-lung-ventilator-manufacturing-firms-covid-19-and-suspends-0