Cuban doctors head to Italy to fight coronavirus

over the last 50 years human doctors have saved millions of lives in Latin America Asia and Africa now for the first time a Cuban medical Brigade is on the way to Europe there are 36 doctors behind me and 15 nurses I spoke to some of them over the last couple of hours and I can tell you they're very proud they insist they're going Swiss elite of their own free will but many of them are very nervous of course I'm skinny but when we went to fight Ebola in West Africa in 2014 we were scared too

but we fulfilled our mission there and we all came back what we're going to do is cure and bring relief not only to the Italian people but the world's population this is a global battle and we have to fight it together Savion okay I Titus persona why are you going on this mission if you know that Cuban doctors have died on past missions because we are the Cuban people this is Cuba and we're always going to keep fighting each other for a moment Cuba has so far registered 25 cases of corona virus substantially less than

most Latin American nations the country prides itself on its preventative health care system and boasts one of the highest doctor to patient ratios in the world but the country's fragile economy is highly dependent on tourism and authorities only announced they would restrict entry into the island on Friday we're not closing the border meaning what we're doing is regulating entry into the country of people except those that are residents of our national territory who are not only our countrymen there are other foreigners that reside in Cuba permanently or some who because if their work are here

for several years Kirra is lending Italy these medics at no cost but for over a decade the leasing of doctors and nurses has been the island's top hard currency generator with Cuba's tourism sector hit hard by the corona virus pandemic the Communist Party will be hoping that unprecedented global demand for doctors will help pay for the power food and running water humans will need to get through this crisis a silver lining perhaps at a dark moment