Cuban medical team arrives in Accra

Accra, Aug. 18, GNA - A team of 14 medical experts from Cuba have arrived in the country to augment the efforts of an eight member Cuban team already in the country to eradicate malaria.

The teams together will introduce in other regions, the malaria control programme, which is a collaboration between Ghana and Cuba that begun in 2007. They will begin with the Brong Ahafo Region and the Ashanti Region.


They arrived Tuesday evening at the Kotoka International Airport.


Mr Robert Joseph Mettle Nunoo, Deputy Minister of Health, who met the delegation at the airport, said Cuba had been able to eradicate malaria through the application of effective measures.


"Cuba has eradicated malaria and they are here to share the technology they adopted with us."


He said once we mastered the technology, the next step would be to spread it across all the regions of the country and then the rest of the continent.


He noted that the relationship between Ghana and Cuba in the health sector dated several years back.

"The Cubans have gone to rural areas where even some Ghanaians are not willing to go to," he observed.


He said government would ensure that the stay of the team in the country would be fruitful.


Mr Felix Quintar Pulido, Representative for West Africa and Project Coordinator for the Malaria Control Program by LABIOFAM, said the choice of Ghana to begin the project in West Africa was due to a number of factors.


He said since the country's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana and Cuba had enjoyed fruitful relations.


Mr Pulido said Ghana particularly had a lot of knowledge on the abilities of Cuba in malaria eradication, which made it ideal to begin the programme in Ghana.


"We are complying with the wishes and policies of our government," he said.

He said the anti-malaria fight in Ghana was a pilot project for West Africa.


"Based on our achievements in Ghana, we plan to extend the project to other West African countries."


The Medical Personnel are from LABIOFAM, a biological pharmaceutical laboratory based in Cuba.


Also at the airport to meet the team was Dr Miguel Perez Cruz, Cuban Ambassador to Ghana.