Geneva, 19 May 2009

Dr. Nimal Siripala de Silva, Chairman of the 62nd Health General Assembly

Dr. Margaret Chan, General Director

Excellencies:

After greeting those present, I wish to offer my condolences to all countries that have had to regret losses of human lives as a consequence of the pandemic influenza A H1N1 and particularly to the brother Mexican people, which was, at the beginning, one of the most affected by this virus.

In Cuba, since last 27th April, were implemented legitimate and appropriate measures included in the national preparation plan to tackle the influenza pandemic, in strict accordance with the International Health Regulations. A particular emphasis was placed on the surveillance and enforcement of measures related to borders health control, mainly in airports, ports and seascapes, as well as on the clinical and epidemiological surveillance of cases positive to Acute Respiratory Infection and Severe Respiratory Infection and on the study of all suspicious cases. Our country has reported three confirmed cases up to the present date; young Mexicans who study medicine in Cuba and who arrived to the country on April 26 and 27, after their vacation.

This threatening pandemic occurs in a moment in which our world, closely interconnected and interdependent, suffers from the impacts caused by the economic and financial crisis that brings about devastating consequences particularly for the health systems of developing countries.

The World Health Organization (WHO), especially Dr. Margaret Chan, have expressed in several occasions their concern about the impact of the crisis on populations and the most poor sectors and vulnerable groups, which are the fist ones in being punished with more strength by the economic deterioration. Suffice it to say that 10 millions of children die each year from preventable causes and that the difference regarding the life expectancy between the richest and the poorest exceeds the 40 years.

The WHO has also expressed that the people are the main goal for the economic recovery, therefore the need to emphasize on justice and social equity.

In relation to this crisis, comrade Fidel Castro expressed that “Our world is not only threatened by cyclical economic crises that are steadily becoming more serious and frequent. Unemployment, ruin and fabulous losses of goods and wealth are the inseparable companions of the blind laws of the market that rule the world economy today.”
And our President Raúl Castro stated that “the crisis is a foreseeable result of the capitalist system of production and distribution.”(…) “The crisis will not be resolved with either administrative or technical measures because they are by nature structural, have systematic reach and increasingly affect the economy of the globalized and interdependent planet. Even less with the strengthening of the role and the functions of financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, whose disastrous policies have decisively contributed to the origin and reach of the current crisis”(…) “The crisis presents us with enormous challenges, of incalculable and unpredictable dimensions. We have no other option than to unite with each other to face it.”
Excellencies,

During the nineties in Cuba, we faced up to an economic crisis due to the fall of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe - to which it was added the intensification of the blockade imposed by U.S. against our country - leading to the sudden disappearance of the markets with which we maintained almost the 85% of our foreign trade and a 70% decrease regarding the import capacity of the Public Health System. Giving this situation, our Government adopted a policy aimed at keeping and maintaining the health indicators of the Cuban population.

Vulnerable groups and actions to preserve lives were prioritized. There was no implementation of neoliberal recipes or shock therapies. Measures were adopted to improve the health care quality, which we still preserve, among them the improvement of Primary Health Care as the basis of the Cuban health system and the training of Specialists in General Integral Medicine with a revolutionary conception of the Doctor.

The technical and scientific development did not stop, it rather got stronger. New centers for scientific research were founded, where new vaccines like the anti-meningococcal and the hepatitis B vaccines were produced with the use of genetic engineering, as well as the vaccine against hemophilo influenzae with the use of chemical synthesis, the only one of its type worldwide.

The existence of a political system of social justice and equity allowed sharing the scarce available resources and guaranteeing that health indicators of the population did not suffer greater affectations; even the mortality rate maintained its regular decreasing tendency.

In 2008, the infant mortality rate in Cuba was 4.7 per 1000 live birth and life expectancy was 77.97 years.

The several crises affecting the World today that threaten to end up with the existence of live and the planet require:

- Solidarity and complementariness, not competition.
- Harmony with our mother land and not the plundering of natural resources.
- A peace system based on social justice and not on war-based policies.
- To guarantee the access to health as a fundamental human right for all.
- To recover the human condition of our societies and peoples and not to reduce them to simple consumers or goods.

Excellencies:

The Non-Aligned Movement has expressed that the economic and financial crisis is one of the most severe threats affecting the world today. Regarding this issue, the NAM Ministers of Heath will adopt a Declaration tomorrow that will convey the South view about the impact of the crisis on health and the measures which are imperative to be implemented by the international community.

I wish all of you success within the framework of this 62nd session of the WHO World Assembly.

Thank you

(Cubaminrex- Embacuba Ginebra)