Since December 3, 1933, each new birthday of Carlos J. Finlay and Latin American Medicine Day have been celebrated annually.
For Cuba, the date becomes a milestone in health matters for the benefit of the population and peoples from other lands, and a departure to assume new commitments and challenges in the difficult task of keeping high public health indicators, even amid the imposed limitations, due to the reinforcement of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States.
Other achievements are success of programs and projects that respond to epidemiological emergencies and in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, the reduction of infant and maternal mortality, and the fight against communicable infectious diseases.
Still latent are the experiences of fighting Covid-19, caused by the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus, as a result of which there were 1,115,169 patients with the disease in Cuba and 8,530 deaths, against which Cuban professionals and scientists created five vaccine candidates, three of them very effective.
The director of Science and Technological Innovation of the Ministry of Public Health, Ileana Morales, noted recently that the indicators of sensitive programs speak about the sustained work of medical professionals in the national health system.
This is also demonstrated by the presence of 407,000 workers in that sector in 164 countries on all continents, from 1963 to date. Currently, more than 28,000 collaborators in 58 nations.
Latin American Medicine Day is celebrated every December 3, a day that commemorates the birthday of Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, who discovered and described the importance of biological vectors in the transmission of diseases caused by biological agents, applying it to yellow fever, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Finlay’s work also transcended its contribution to the understanding of the behavior of epidemics, which have plagued humanity since ancient times.
He was a clear example of perseverance and dedication to the medical profession and how science, focused on health, produces significant breakthroughs in the protection of the most precious thing in human beings: life.
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