Excerpt from a statement at the thirty first Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba
Under the present circumstances, the establishment of a just, democratic and equitable international order is an imperative. It is a condition for the survival of the species in an ever more interconnected and paradoxically unequal world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the human cost of that inequality and has revealed the urgent need to strengthen national health systems; promote universal and free access to basic medical services and guarantee an equitable distribution of vital resources...
In Cuba, we have implemented a government management system based on science and innovation, which has furthered up interconnections among such areas as knowledge, production and social services.
This is an inclusive, participatory, systemic, cross-cutting and intersectoral system that crystallizes and achieves its best results in the robust protocols applied in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and the responsible attitude adopted by our people.
In other words, what we do is to give practical expression to the way in which the social system operates in Cuba and is capable of solving or successfully tackle very complex problems, while human beings are the top priority of the government’s work.
The role of science and its articulation with government management has been crucial. The relevant achievements attained by the medical and pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology allow us to be in a better position to cope with the disease. Two Cuban candidate vaccines that are currently going through the clinical trial phase have been included among the 47 registered by the World Health Organization.
Faithful to our humanist vocation, 53 Cuban medical brigades have helped to cope with the disease in 39 countries and territories, which joined those that were already offering their services in 59 nations.
That has been possible even under the heavy burden of the criminal and unjust blockade imposed by the government of the United States –which has been tightened in an unprecedented way- and a cynical disparagement campaigned launched against our international medical cooperation. - Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba, excerpt from a statement at the thirty first Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, December 3, 2020