Aimeé Blanco, head of the Department of Transmissible Diseases at the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology, and Microbiology, explained that special attention is being paid to travelers who arrive in the country, especially from nations where cholera outbreaks have been reported.

Travelers are subjected to chemoprophylaxis, with a dose of doxycycline, as part of the international sanitary control, and clinical surveillance by the leading healthcare system upon arrival in Cuba until two weeks later.

In case of any symptoms of the disease, caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacillus, a rapid response system is activated to control the outbreak, and a rapid test is made, Blanco told the Venceremos newspaper.

“Patients who arrive at the emergency services with clinical criteria of dehydration are tested, as established by the protocol for acute diarrheal diseases,” she said.

The symptoms of cholera include watery, liquid, profuse, whitish, and fishy diarrhea, vomiting, and fever.

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