July 2020. The mayor of one of Italy’s biggest cities was effusive in her praise for the Cuban medics who spent three months in the country helping fight coronavirus. “It is not the victory over the virus we are celebrating,” Chiara Appendino told the assembled dignitaries. “It is the victory of the values represented by those who came from the other side of the ocean, of solidarity and generosity.” Ms Appendino, a member of Italy’s populist Five Star Movement, was speaking at a ceremony in Turin this month to thank one of the Cuban teams. They were among 3,600 health professionals from the Caribbean nation battling the pandemic in 35 countries around the world. Their high-profile work in wealthy western as well as poorer nations has sharpened a bitter international controversy over Cuba’s longstanding policy of sending thousands of medics to work abroad, mostly in developing countries and usually in return for hard cash.
Jul 2020. Coronavirus in Cuba
