Cuban, Chinese doctors to help South Africa fight coronavirus

Cuban, Chinese doctors to help South Africa fight coronavirus

- Cuban and Chinese doctors may soon be helping South African doctors in the fight against the coronavirus

- Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize had asked Cuba and China to send their doctors to the country

- The coronavirus has already claimed the lives of five people in South Africa

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Cuban and Chinese doctors may arrive in South Africa as soon as next week to help in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

This is after Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize had asked Cuba and China through the World Health Organisation to send doctors to the South Africa.

Mkhize's request was a sequel to a working meeting between him and the Cuban ambassador to South Africa, Rodolfo Benitez Verson, on 24 March, reports The Citizen.

There are already more than 200 Cuban doctors deployed in eight provinces except the DA-run Western Cape, according to The Citizen.

The province reportedly declined to participate in the South Africa-Cuba medical doctors’ training programme.

Many within the ANC had made numerous calls for Mkhize to ask Cuba to send doctors to the country due to the increasing number of infections and deaths due to coronavirus.

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ANC opposition leader in the Western Cape legislature Cameron Dugmore has written to Premier Alan Winde expressing concern that the province might not be able to benefit from the deployment of the Cuban doctors as result of the DA policy.

Dugmore said the ANC in the Western Cape welcomed the Cubans to come to the Western Cape because they had the best medical skills to deal with the pandemic, reports The Citizen.

"A major concern for us is that the province has not been part of the national project to send our students to train in Cuba as doctors. We are thus concerned that the Western Cape government will once against decide not to be part of this initiative which offers support from Cuba."

He urged Winde to welcome the doctors if they were deployed in the province.

“Extra doctors from Cuba and China would no doubt be of assistance in urban communities like Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and other Cape Flats communities in need of additional medical practitioners. I urge you to put the best interest of the people of the Western Cape ahead of any ideological objections your party might have with Cuba."

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Source: Briefly News

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