In an effort to source medical assistance with the coronavirus response, the Virgin Islands has reached out internationally, and 30 medical personnel are coming soon from Cuba, according to Premier Andrew Fahie.
Mr. Fahie announced the request on Saturday, stating that the team was “ready to come” to the territory pending United Kingdom approval, and Governor Gus Jaspert approved the request the same day.
The personnel will all be quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival to the territory, the premier added during a speech on Tuesday evening.
The request was organised by the Ministry of Health and Social Development, the International Affairs Secretariat of the Premier’s Office, the Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States, and the Cuban government, according to the premier.
Requests for more information from the ministry, the Governor’s Office and the Premier’s Office were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, government constructed testing-and-isolation units on the upper hospital parking lot.
Other countries
Cuba, which has one of the highest ratios of physicians per capita in the world, routinely sends doctors to other countries.
That has not changed during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cuban medical workers went to Italy recently to help treat and cure the rapidly spreading virus there.
The country has also sent brigades to Dominica, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada.
In the past, Cuba has sent doctors to the front lines of the fight against cholera in Haiti and Ebola in West Africa in the 2010s, Reuters reported.