EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 16 September 2023 — The Government of Brazil announced this Friday in Havana that it will sign an agreement with Cuba to “exchange” knowledge in science and technology, and to develop medicines “jointly.”
The Minister of Health, Nísia Trinidade, said at a press conference that the agreement will include developing innovations in vaccines and medicines for chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
In addition, the two countries will again form a binational committee with health authorities, which was created in 2002, and to which, according to Trinidade, the Government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) did not give “continuity.”
This committee will define “the work agenda” for a collaboration that the minister described as “a win-win” for both sides, although she did not mention how much will be invested in the agreement.
Trinidade said that Brazil will benefit from the “leading knowledge that Cuba developed” and the Island, in turn, from the Brazilian ability to “produce medicines at scale.”
The Minister of Science and Technology put on the table the possibility of training Cuban professionals in the management of satellite surveillance systems
Beyond drugs, the Minister of Science and Technology, Luciana Santos, put on the table the possibility of training Cuban professionals in the management of the satellite surveillance systems available to Brazil to prevent natural disasters and support agriculture.
The ministers are part of the entourage of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who arrived this Friday in Havana to participate in the G77+China meeting, a group that Cuba presided over last year.
This is the first visit of a Brazilian president to the Island since 2014, and the first since Lula assumed his third term in January (he already visited in 2003, 2008 and 2010 during his first two terms).
The previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, was openly hostile to the Cuban government. He had no qualms about calling it a “dictatorship” and froze a program that brought hundreds of Cuban doctors to Brazil.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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