14ymedio, Havana, March 16, 2020 — A Canadian tourist who arrived in Cuba on March 5 died of “acute respiratory symptoms,” while the state of health of one of the three Italians who tested positive for coronavirus worsened, as the Ministry of Public Health reported this Monday.
The Canadian vacationer was not suffering from coronavirus, but rather influenza type A, specified Dr. Carmelo Trujillo Machado, head of the Department of International Health Control of the body, but he did not reveal the tourist’s identity nor date of death.
In a press conference, representatives from the Ministry of Health also reported on the four people sick with COVID-19, patients at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) in Havana.
“On the night of March 15, one of the confirmed patients, 61 years old, of Italian nationality and with a history of suffering bronchial asthma, began to show clinical signs of complications typical of the disease, for which he received treatment according to the established protocol,” they detailed.
“Today, the 16th of March, as of 12 noon, his state has continued to deteriorate, for which he has required artificial ventilation, bringing him to a stable critical condition. A medical team of specialists in intensive therapy and the group of experts from the Ministry of Public Health is maintaining treatment and permanent monitoring,” adds the official note.
According to the text, the rest of the patients with COVID-19 “maintain a stable clinical development.”
Cuban authorities have admitted 13 travelers coming from the United States and 20 from Italy to hospitals on the Island, where they are being monitored for having symptoms of COVID-19.
This Monday the Island allowed the cruise ship MS Braemar, which was sailing through the Caribbean since the end of February, to dock at the Mariel port. The ship has more than a thousand people aboard and five confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the British company Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, which owns the ship.
The official site Cubadebate took advantage of the situation to criticize Cuba’s northern neighbor: “While Mr. Trump wants a vaccine EXCLUSIVELY for the United States and tried to prevent a cruise ship from entering California because the number of patients with COVID-19 in that country would rise, Cuba offers what it has to the world: interferon to the Chinese, expertise to the Venezuelans, and treatment to these anchored cruise ship passengers.”
Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera
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