José Ángel Portal Miranda, Cuban Minister of Public Health, evaluated the epidemiological situations due to the incidence of COVID-19 in Campechuela and Manzanillo, two of the 13 municipalities in the province of Granma, as very complex, which shows a high transmission and dispersion of the deadly disease.
After visiting healthcare institutions and talking to patients, family members, healthcare professionals and managers of the sector on Monday, the minister insisted on the importance of achieving a better organization of services, reinforcing the work of basic teams with community support groups, and discuss daily the state of opinion of the people.
Opportunity, speed and quality of care, he said, are key concepts to reduce pressure and dissatisfaction from people, who are logically afraid of the contagion and death of relatives, neighbors and acquaintances.
The intense work day began in Campechuela with a visit to the respiratory infections clinic open in the rehabilitation room attached to the Gustavo Aldereguía Lima teaching polyclinic, in the municipal seat.
There Portal Miranda appreciated complaints from the population related to delays in medical care and performance of the antigen test, and indicated to increase capacities, as necessary.
He also stressed the urgency of reviewing all the measures implemented in order to prevent and cut the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, with an emphasis on adequate communication and information to citizens.
Another decisive step to transform the epidemiological scenario is the immunization process, which has already begun, but must be rigorously ordered, enabling as many vaccination centers as required by the locality, he declared.
Dr. Dariel Martínez de la Cruz, director of Public Health in Campechuela, explained that, since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 795 positive cases have accumulated, for an incidence rate of 1,864.7 patients per 100,000 inhabitants.
At this critical moment of the COVID-19 outbreak, he acknowledged insufficiencies in the effectiveness of the active investigation in the communities, as a consequence of which many patients are coming to the health centers after up to five days of referring symptoms.
Accompanied by the highest political, governmental and health authorities of the province, the Cuban Minister of Public Health arrived in Manzanillo later, where he toured areas of the Celia Sánchez Manduley hospital, exchanged with students from the University of Medical Sciences of Granma, and chaired a meeting of the temporary working group.
When they seemed to move towards a decrease in infections, the current behavior of the disease in the municipality shows instability of the actions they take in order to cut transmission, Portal Miranda pointed out.
In this sense, he directed reviewing the local prevention strategy against the pandemic, reinforcing essential aspects such as discipline, organization and control; This last action requires daily going through the different scenarios of confrontation with the disease and listening to the people, to know first-hand where the problems and the main dissatisfactions are.