Cuba: Women, the Girl Child and HIV/AIDS

Health care in Cuba is universal, accessible to all and free. Basically, the health strategy is rooted in primary care for disease prevention and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. The Family Doctor system has a national coverage of 98 per cent, reaches every part of the country - rural areas and towns - and counts on more than 28,000 family doctors that offer their services to the entire population.

One of the priorities of our health care system in Cuba has been AIDS care, with the necessary human and financial resources being allocated to confront the disease and for the medical and psychological treatment of patients. A National Programme for the Control and Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS exists, which is developing with the support and collaboration of all Cuban agencies and organisations working in this area.

The Cuban health care system has not escaped from the harsh restrictions of the economic, financial and commercial blockade, which the United States has imposed on our country for over 40 years. On the contrary, it is one of the areas that has suffered the most from this irrational policy, which prohibits the acquisition of pharmaceutical products, medical equipment and raw materials required for manufacture in Cuban laboratories or firms. The blockade, which has worsened progressively with the passage of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws, has caused our country substantial and indiscriminate economic losses, directly or indirectly affecting all health sector activities, without any distinction for exceptional cases, such as epidemics, emergency cases and relief.

In this context, Cuba has adopted a number of guidelines for maintaining the aims of the revolution’s social project. Thus responsibility for satisfying the population’s needs and improving the well being of the Cuban family and society at large rests with the State.

If AIDS has not taken a greater number of human lives in Cuba, it is because the Government has demonstrated the political will to benefit everyone equally. This is done by allocating the necessary resources to the health care system and for prevention through health education and knowledge, targeted to the population in general, and to children, women and the elderly in particular.

The deplorable situation which humanity has suffered for more than 15 years as a result of HIV/AIDS needs an urgent response from the international community, in order to prevent the causes of the disease. By combating poverty and the social ills plaguing our planet, we will be able to combat AIDS. Resources need to be allocated immediately to poor countries, to make the necessary drugs accessible for treating the disease, and to increase development co-operation and aid.

Thousands of girls and boys have been orphaned and have been made economically vulnerable as a result of deaths due to AIDS, forming a chain of misery and poverty, which extends across the globe. The spread of this pandemic must be stopped at all costs in order to avoid so many human losses, debilitated zones, dismembered families, desperate women and towns lost in hopelessness and poverty.

In light of the celebration of the World Summit for Children, let us unite our efforts and renew the objectives, so that children grow up happy and children’s rights are respected. Governments and the international community must make bold commitments to invest resources and international co-operation in support for the family, the fight against AIDS, poverty eradication and genuine sustainable development, that benefits the greatest majority and respects the right of states to decide on their own means of achieving a better future.