‘Cubans immune to dozens of diseases’
January 9th, 2012 - 2:38 pm ICT by IANSHavana, Jan 9 (IANS) People in Cuba are immune to dozens of illness that kill millions of people in the rest of the world, health experts in the Communist-ruled nation have claimed.
More than two dozen infectious diseases are controlled in Cuba, and of them at least 15 — including polio, malaria and neonatal tetanus — do not exist in the country, a specialist from the health ministry was quoted as saying by the Prensa Latina news agency.
Diphtheria, pertussis, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome, mumps meningitis, measles, yellow fever, cholera, severe forms of tuberculosis, human rabies, leichmaniasis and Chagas disease, have been eradicated in Cuba, the official said.
Immunization was one of the determining factors in the eradication of a large number of preventable diseases in the country, he said.
Otto Pelaez, head of the department of communicable diseases, said there were eight infectious illness that do not worry the society, because they have an insignificant impact, affecting just 0.1 per 10,000 inhabitants.
These illnesses were adult tetanus, meningitis A, Haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, meningococcal meningitis B and C, parotitis (mumps), typhoid fever, syphilis and AIDS in children.
Also very low was the incidence of leptospirosis, leprosy and brucellosis.
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