By Martha Isabel Andrés
In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina during a visit to the Caribbean country, the head of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS highlighted the island’s achievements in the fight against this pandemic, including having been the first country in the world to receive validation for eliminating mother-child transmission.
But beyond these results, he expressed that the response to HIV is based on health systems, which is why he estimated that the greatest lesson of the Antillean territory for other developing nations is to invest in people, in their health and education.
Byanyima, who during her stay on the island visited spaces such as the Abelardo Ramírez Teaching Polyclinic, the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine and the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, highlighted that Cuba made and continues to make strong investments in the health and education of its people, as well as in prevention and treatment.
If you sell health as if it were fashionable clothing, for example, you cannot end a pandemic, because the pandemic feeds on the weakest areas of society, those who cannot afford treatments. So we have a free and strong health system here, remarked the head of UNAIDS, regretting that other countries allocate fewer resources to the health sector.
In addition, he pointed out that the largest of the Antilles also provides solidarity, by sending its doctors and nurses to fight diseases in more than 50 nations on the planet, a lesson that Cuba “can teach to rich countries, many of which are weakening their help, and to other middle-income states that can do more to address HIV/AIDS.”
He also maintained that this territory can help in the area of human rights, since its Constitution and laws include equality between all and do not discriminate based on sexual orientation or identity, while in dozens of countries this is a great barrier and is not It can reach people because there are laws that criminalize it.
According to Byanyima, who met with the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz Canel, on Monday, the island can also lead and help in offering technology to the rest of the world, because it has achievements in innovation and research in the different fields of health and in the development of medicines, as evidenced by obtaining its own vaccines against Covid-19.
In that sense, he expressed interest in supporting the Antillean territory to disseminate its potential and have more South-South collaboration that brings capital, “because it can gain from the transfer of technology to other developing countries” and “it is in a position to support the capacity development in regions such as Africa and Asia.”
At the same time, the executive director expressed that Cuba has lessons to learn to advance the goal of ensuring that AIDS stops being a public health threat by 2030.
In particular, he mentioned the importance of communities being used more and leading the response to the pandemic. We have seen in many countries that when young people work with people of the same age or LGBTQ people with members of that same group, such a strategy leaves no one behind, so Cuba could do more to reach a greater number of people through the I work with these vulnerable groups, he noted.
He also noted that the island is suffering from economic limitations, which leads to shortages of resources such as condoms and represents a great challenge that could be solved “if external restrictions were removed.”
In this regard, he stated that he had seen the damage that the embargo (economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States more than six decades ago) causes in the Cuban response to HIV/AIDS, when there is the will to promote the confrontation with the disease and What is missing is the necessary money.
Regarding the purposes of his stay in Havana from May 6 to 9, he explained that he traveled to learn about the island and explore opportunities for South-South collaboration. “There are many African countries that are making partnerships to build their pharmaceutical technology capabilities and I want to explore how we can support Cuba to be a partner for these territories.”
I also want to learn how to support the country in ending its fight against HIV, because I know it is facing serious economic challenges, and I see an opportunity for us to advocate for Cuba in HIV funding circles to acquire some products like condoms. , and I will take the message to my colleagues, the global fund and bilateral donors, he said.
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