Mosquito repellents and medications sent to the island by emigrants are running out in Florida.
14ymedio, María Casas, Miami, October 23, 2025 – Sitting on folding chairs, with umbrellas, small cups of coffee, and sunglasses, dozens of customers waited this Thursday morning in front of one of the offices of the Cubamax agency in Miami, to send a package to their families on the island. The health crisis ravaging Cuba shapes everything from what is bought in the markets of the capital of the Cuban exile to the contents of those boxes that travel 90 miles by boat or plane.
“I have two bottles of mosquito repellent, several packets of citronella incense to keep the bugs away, and medication for fever,” details Gladys, 66, who has only been in the United States for three years, speaking to 14ymedio. With numerous relatives suffering from dengue and chikungunya, the woman was trying to send several boxes full of medicine, food, and all kinds of products to keep away the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the insect that has put the Cuban Public Health system in jeopardy.
Living in San Miguel del Padrón, Gladys’s relatives have been “getting over one and getting another” for weeks, the woman warns. “It started with the children, and now the oldest members of the house are also infected. The one who’s having the worst time is my cousin, who is diabetic, has high blood pressure, and heart disease.” To complete the long list of needs and requests, the emigrant visited several supermarket chains: Sedano, Navarro, Fresco, Costco, Publix, and even Target. “I arrived in some places and they were out of repellent spray because they say people are buying too much to send to Cuba.”
The emergencies on the Island have ended up shaping commerce in Miami.
The island’s emergencies have ultimately shaped commerce in Miami. In the weeks leading up to the start of the school year on the island, demand for school uniforms increases in stores that have seen a financial windfall in the sale of these uniforms, mandatory in Cuban classrooms. If domestic coffee production plummets and the rationed quota is delayed, emigrants flock there to purchase La Llave, Bustelo, and other cheaper brands to send as quickly as possible to Havana or Camagüey.
Next to Gladys, a young man held a long, drawn-out discussion this Thursday about the merchandise he would send when, after waiting in a long line, he was able to enter the air-conditioned office. “I brought a cane for my mother, whose knee is severely swollen from the virus and she can barely take a step. I also included some medication for diarrhea and a product to purify her water, which is arriving very dirty.” He will fill the rest of the box, weighing up to 100 pounds and currently shipping for $45 under a special offer, with cans of sardines, powdered milk, and “a nebulizer for a great-uncle who suffers from asthma, and on top of that, he has oropouche fever.”
Oral rehydration salts, ointments to soothe joint pain, anti-nausea remedies, and a long list of headache relievers also piled up in the bags accompanying customers. With each person who managed to enter the office and ship their package, a family in Cuba saw the light of relief at the end of the tunnel of health collapse.
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