Two Cuban Foreign Ministry officials reported the death of Lázaro Delgado Chaple on social media
14ymedio, Havana, 24 September 2024 — Until last week, the death toll from Oropouche Fever in Cuba, according to Cuban Public Health authorities, was zero. However, the death of Colonel Lázaro Delgado Chaple, reported at the same time by several Cuban officials – and not by the official press – casts doubt on the declared figures and highlights the silence of the health authorities, who have been opaque about the total number of cases on the Island so far.
Delgado Chaple, second in command of the Identification, Immigration and Foreign Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior, died from “complications resulting from Oropouche,” Orestes Hernández Hernández, a Foreign Ministry official who said he knew the soldier, posted on Facebook last Thursday. According to the post – which was removed from the official’s profile – the two worked together in the “securing” of the José Martí international airport in Havana during Barack Obama’s visit and then Delgado Chaple went on to occupy the position of head of Remodeling of the Museo de la Denuncia, in the municipality of Playa.
The Cuban consul in Mexico City also lamented the death of the soldier, saying he had lost a “comrade” and “brother in the fight.” This Tuesday, the comment, recorded by CubaNet , also did not appear on the official’s profile.
The Cuban consul in Mexico City also lamented the death of the soldier, saying he had lost a “comrade.”
In February 2022, Delgado Chaple was included on a list of repressors by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, which pointed to the military officer as one of those responsible for the expatriation and forced exile of activists, journalists and artists opposed to the regime.
So far, the island’s Hygiene and Epidemiology authorities have assured that the Oropouche virus is a disease with mild symptoms that rarely ends in death. In fact, in the latest report that Public Health made public on social media, attention is focused on dengue, an arbovirus with similar symptoms but higher risk, which can coexist in the same patient with Oropouche Fever.
Unlike dengue, which has not reached Artemisa and Granma, according to the statement, the Oropouche infection has spread throughout the island, although the number of infections or deaths is not specified. As of the end of August, only 506 cases have been confirmed since May, when the first cases were reported in Santiago de Cuba. Due to the lack of means in hospitals to identify the disease, the figures could be much higher.
Many Cubans have even stated that, after going to hospitals, as recommended by Public Health if symptoms appear, the health workers themselves claimed not to have the means to identify whether it was Oropouche, dengue or another disease, and sent them back home with a “standard” treatment.
The presence of the virus on the streets of Havana was revealed by ’14ymedio’, at the beginning of June, despite the silence of the authorities
The presence of the virus on the streets of Havana was revealed by 14ymedio at the beginning of June, despite the silence of the authorities in the face of the accumulating cases and the discontent of the residents with the situation. By the end of that same month, this newspaper reported the presence of the Oropouche in 13 of the 15 provinces of the Island, which at that time contrasted with the data from Public Health that only officially counted nine.
Public Health has been criticised on numerous occasions for allegedly hiding or partially providing data on infections. The most emblematic case was during the Covid-19 pandemic when, even with hospitals overwhelmed, Hygiene and Epidemiology offered relatively moderate daily figures of sick people. Even the treatment given to those who died from the virus was dubious. Not only was death declared due to “complications associated with the coronavirus” – a euphemism to avoid adding more deaths to the death toll from the disease – but many corpses were buried in mass graves.
As described in this newspaper, in the San Francisco batey [sugar workers’ town], several kilometers from Manzanillo, up to 200 people who were victims of Covid were buried in mass graves every day.
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