The government speaks of a “controlled outbreak” while a doctor from Villa Clara explains that she is “very worried about this chikungunya situation”
14ymedio, Dario Hernandez, Havana, November 3, 2025 — In recent weeks, hospitals and clinics across Cuba have been filled with patients suffering from high fever, rashes, joint pain, and extreme fatigue. The lack of reagents in laboratories and the high number of patients who don’t even go to the hospital make it difficult to determine whether they have dengue, oropouche, chikungunya, Zika, or another arbovirus, all transmitted by mosquitoes.
Juan Carlos, a 38-year-old Havana resident, is still recovering from what he calls “the virus,” without knowing whether it is the dreaded chikungunya. “This week I went to a friend’s café several times. People were arriving looking like zombies, with red, swollen eyes. Several businesses in the area are closed because the workers got infected too. In Regla, it’s normal for an entire block to be infested,” he tells 14ymedio.
His account, filled with details about the aftereffects and daily challenges, reveals the rigors of convalescence. “First, I had mild muscle aches. That night I had a very high fever and chills. At dawn, my whole body was covered in a rash. By eleven in the morning, I couldn’t move from the bed. I developed sores in my mouth and my face peeled,” he says. “Moving caused me pain. Luckily, I had my girlfriend, who made me soup and gave me paracetamol. I thought about the people who have no one, because moving from one room to another was a feat.”
The official bulletins on the health situation are vague and very general.
“The saddest thing,” he adds, “is that nobody knows for sure what they have. Since there are no reagents for the tests in the hospitals, you assume you have one of the variants and simply call it ‘the virus.’ That’s how we live: diagnosing by guesswork.”
Official bulletins on the health situation are vague and very general. Press conferences at the Ministry of Public Health mention a resurgence of these illnesses, but updated figures and statistics are lacking. So far, only one number has been published: three deaths from dengue fever this year. But social media tells a different story: names, photos, and farewells from neighbors, doctors, and family members who have succumbed to what people call, with resignation and fear, “the virus that’s going around.”
Dr. Perla María Trujillo Pedroza, a specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine at the Manuel Piti Fajardo Polyclinic in Santo Domingo (Villa Clara) with years of experience in provincial hospitals, decided to break her silence on her Facebook page . “I am very worried about this chikungunya situation,” she wrote, “I don’t know if it’s because I’m experiencing it firsthand or because this researcher’s insatiable spirit makes me see beyond what we can currently perceive.” Her post, shared hundreds of times, is a professional cry of alarm amidst a health crisis that the government prefers to call a “controlled outbreak.”
“If the first cases date back to July 2025, how is it possible that there still isn’t a clinical guideline for managing this disease?” the specialist asks. “Wake up. Cuban doctors are improvising as we go in treating chikungunya, especially in its subacute phase.” In her own hospital shift, she recounts, she treated 47 patients with symptoms consistent with the virus. “Of those, 34 had been sick for more than 15 days, and 28 were in the subacute stage. That’s 82%, well above what the literature reports.”
Her calculations—and the frankness with which she shares them—stand in stark contrast to the opacity and institutional triumphalism. Meanwhile, in the neighborhoods, testimonies are multiplying of people bedridden, unable to walk due to joint pain, or with peeling skin after several days of fever. “Why isn’t anyone talking about the implications of this developing into a chronic condition?” Trujillo insists. “This causes a severe, debilitating form of polyarthritis. What will become of this country’s already fragile economy when medical certificates or sick leave requests from workers who must care for their nearly incapacitated elderly relatives flood in?”
In the emergency room of the Calixto García Hospital in Havana, the scene is the same as Dr. Trujillo describes. Nieves, an oncology patient, went there last Friday seeking relief from unbearable joint pain. “They had nothing to soothe the pain, and the place was full of people with similar symptoms to mine, especially many elderly people,” she recounts. “After an hour in line and hearing everyone being told to ‘rest and drink plenty of fluids,’ I decided to go home.”
“Nobody gives you a clear answer, they don’t even know if this could complicate the treatment. They just tell you to rest.”
Nieves fears she won’t be able to attend her chemotherapy session this week. “I’m very weak. No one gives you a clear answer, they don’t even know if this could complicate the treatment. They just tell you to rest.” In several Havana hospitals—according to medical sources consulted by this newspaper—the same scene is repeated: overcrowded wards, doctors without specific medications, and reports of cases with prolonged aftereffects.
“I’ve had the symptoms for a month now, and I’m using my body as a guinea pig,” confessed Dr. Trujillo. “I can’t just let myself die from the pain; many people depend on me. If I get positive results, I’ll let you know.” In another era, such a voice would have been attacked by the official medical establishment. Today, her colleagues respond with encouraging emojis and expressions of gratitude in the comments.
Partial data obtained by specialists within the health system itself indicate that the incidence of arboviruses in Havana and Santiago de Cuba has doubled since July. In the capital alone, the Calixto García, Freyre de Andrade (Emergency) hospitals and the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) account for the majority of admissions, but confirmatory tests are rarely performed.
Chikungunya, a name that in the Makonde language of Africa means “to become contorted with pain” (referring to the severe joint pain caused by the disease), arrived in Cuba in 2014. It is transmitted by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries dengue and Zika, which thrives in untreated yards, uncovered water tanks, and flooded neighborhoods. The rains from Hurricane Melissa and the lack of sanitation could further increase the insect’s presence, especially in the eastern part of the island.
On the news, the advice to boil water and use mosquito nets is repeated, but there’s no mention of the overcrowded hospitals, the sick leave, or the patients who haven’t been able to walk for weeks. Meanwhile, in the halls of the Calixto Hospital, on the streets of Regla, or on Facebook walls, the entire country continues coughing, trembling, and asking itself, without an answer: what is the real name of the disease that has us like this?
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