Cuba reports 163 cases of cholera

Via Xinhua :

" Cuba has detected a new outbreak of cholera that has affected 163 people, including 12 tourists, a Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) report said Tuesday.

"All of them are progressing favorably, without casualties," said the PAHO report, which was compiled with data provided by Cuban health authorities and uploaded to the state-sponsored "Yoandry's blog".

The new cases were detected in the western province of Havana, and eastern Santiago de Cuba and Camaguey, noted the report dated Aug. 23.

Among the affected tourists, two come from Germany, Chile, Spain and Venezuela each, three from Italy and one from the Netherlands."

Cuba reports 67 cases of imported dengue

Via Xinhua :

" HAVANA, Aug. 26 : Cuba registered 67 dengue patients who had been infected by the mosquito-borne disease outside of the island, a Public Health Ministry official said Wednesday.

"There aren't local cases of dengue" on the island, Otto Pelaez Sanchez, chief of the Department of Communicable Diseases, said.

The official said that 34 countries had currently reported dengue cases, but Cuba was the only one where the transmission was not active.

The provinces most at risk of transmission were Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Camaguey and Havana, due to the presence of the dengue-carrying mosquito, Aedes aegypti, he said.

The goal was to minimize the risk of transmission by eliminating mosquito breeding to prevent a national epidemic, he said."

Cuba : National Vaccination Campaign against A H1N1 Flu Virus Nearing Completion

Via Cuban News Agency :

" Estruch told reporters that the vaccine, donated by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been administered to 1,265,807 people included in highly vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and those within the term of up to 42 days after labor.

The official said that 500 facilities were used as vaccination centers and more than 100,000 professional nurses played a decisive role in the preparation and organization of all services and resources. He also praised their work in a recently concluded national anti-polio vaccination campaign that protected over half a million Cuban children.

Dr. Miguel Angel Galindo, an advisor of the national vaccination program who won the 1999 Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Award for Immunization, noted that Cuba leads the region in these vaccination efforts and added that 29 countries of the Americas have implemented vaccination programs among vulnerable groups."