Although Cubans are betting that an effective vaccine will be found to immunize people against Covid-19 or at least to counteract its spread, they skeptically accepted the announcements of the medical authorities, who assured that the use of vaccines will be authorized on the island in March.
“There is not a single drug in pharmacies to control scabies and they want to fill us with the story that they will produce 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines,” says Ezequiel Varona Díaz, a resident of Centro Habana and the father of three minors. critically infested with scabies ”for three months.
“The doctors of the guard house, from any hospital, tell you clearly:” There are no medicines, solve yourself by boiling your clothes every day and bathing yourself in hot water twice. “We have been trying for three months with our three children, but we cannot continue to boil clothes and sheets every day, because water enters this municipality every day,” objected Varona Díaz, who also confirmed that in her popular council, Columbus, “the outbreak is not coronavirus, but scabies.”
In an advertising video released by TeleSur, the director of the Finlay Institute in Havana, Vicente Pérez, explained that Cuba had four vaccines in advanced stages: Soberana 01 and 02, Abdala and Mambisa.
“Cuba is the only developing nation with vaccines against Covid in human tests. Its use on the island could be authorized in March and the goal is to vaccinate the entire Cuban people by 2021,” he said.
The official certified that Cuba is moving forward and has already offered these vaccines to Vietnam, Iran, Venezuela and India. “They will even be offered to foreign tourists visiting the island. Tourists will have the option, if they want, to get vaccinated in Cuba as well,” he said.
Dr. Rafael López, a resident of Plaza, recalled that, as a contagious subcutaneous disease, scabies spreads rapidly through physical contact in homes, educational institutions and nursing homes, but with the right drugs it can be cured in a few days or, at most, , in two weeks.
“To treat scabies, the first thing to do is to kill the mites and their larvae with drugs that must be applied from the neck down and left to act for eight hours. It is also possible to kill the mites with oral drugs, but “Right now, there is no alternative. In the area where I work, in Diez de Octubre, scabies is literally pandemic, and the only recommendation is to boil your clothes every day and bathe in hot water and macaw leaves.” recommended López.
The manager of a pharmacy in the municipality of Cerro said that for about a year he had barely been given any of the medicines to treat scabies, such as lindane and benzyl benzoate.
“Permethrin is what comes occasionally. But it doesn’t last 24 hours, because scabies is the real pandemic. I don’t know a single neighbor at Casino Deportivo who doesn’t have scabies. People are turning to self-medication with ointments. For skin conditions. such as clovetasol and triamcinolone, but the doctors themselves warn you that none of them are effective in curing scabies, “said the administrator.
The severe economic crisis the country is going through is highlighted every day in the impoverishment of health care, primary health care and the construction of hospitals, polyclinics and medical offices themselves, where professionals do not even have the tools available, optimal materials and supplies, or in stock, to provide its services with the quality that, according to the rhetoric of the regime on the island, distinguishes Cuba internationally.
Diagnosed with an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, Aurora Oliva’s mother developed bedsores because the old woman can barely manage on her own to meet her physiological needs.
“I went to the Family Clinic, where the medical staff explained to me that there is no material available to cure bedsores or in pharmacies. That such material must be requested by medical certificate from the polyclinic, where it will later be distributed to the clinic “said Oliva, a mathematics graduate and neighbor of Playa.
“A week later, the nurse left me some nitrofurasone at home [pomada antibiótica] that it was the only thing that existed and the warning that she had to learn to heal them, because because of her workload she could not do it every day. But not sterile gloves, gauze, tampons, iodine, chromium mercury, alcohol, which are needed to cure bedsores. In the midst of all this, the whole area is infected with scabies, including my partner who failed to solve, not even in Revolico, sulfur or ozone soap, “Oliva added.
Los Sitio, one of Havana’s most densely populated neighborhoods, has been in an isolation phase since February 12 last year, when the epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic in Havana was declared.
“Besides the coronavirus, here in Los Sitio, it’s the epicenter of scabies. It’s a pity that people are shouting out loud, but the outbreak of scabies is very serious,” a doctor confirmed while performing PCR on four families. . in one-tenths of this popular council.
“I agree that it is really inadmissible to talk about a production of 100 million doses of any vaccine, when it can not even produce drugs as simple as those needed to counter the outbreak of scabies that currently affects not only Havana, but also more than half of the provinces, “said the doctor, who fears that self-medication of people to get rid of scabies will cause irreversible skin damage.
“The daughter of one of our nurses resorted to ‘removal’ which is used for horses, while a friend of mine uses liquid with her grandchildren to kill ticks on dogs. I have seen other cases that have resorted to mixing vinegar with baking soda or Vaseline that is used for damaged hair. All these inventions are extremely harmful and could lead to the acceleration of skin cancer, one of the most common in the country, “the doctor concluded.