Socialist Paradise? As dengue fever sweeps across Cuba, regime conceals death toll

The Cuban regime has finally accepted the harsh reality: dengue fever, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes, has invaded all provinces across the island.

In a special meeting between the president-designate Miguel Diaz-Canel and medical authorities, it was revealed that people in all provinces, 41 municipalities, and 60 health areas are infected with the fever.

At the meeting, regime officials discussed how to avoid more deaths from the disease now being transmitted by the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. According to the CDC, "severe dengue can result in shock, internal bleeding, and even death" while infants and pregnant women are at higher risk for developing severe dengue.

Still, the regime did not provide figures on the number of Cubans dying from dengue fever, despite press reports of an increase in the number of cases of this epidemic. Nor did they comment on the very poor hygiene conditions throughout the country that are fostering the breeding grounds of the mosquito that transmits the disease.

Medical authorities explained that it is essential to act quickly to diagnose the disease in order to try to reduce deaths. The main symptoms of dengue fever are high fever, headaches and muscle aches.

There are no medicines for the treatment of dengue, and sick people can get very sick with respiratory problems and organ damage, which can lead to death. 

During the meeting, the importance of classifying patients according to their signs and symptoms was also stressed, and the reorganization of medical services was another of the main elements to minimize the effects of dengue.

The Cuban health system has been praised by a significant proportion of the global public health community for decades and leftist movements around the world, to the extent that 2014 the UN's World Health Organization issued a report saying that Cuba's health care system is an example for all countries.

Yet many academics and physicians have written extensively about the manipulation of health indicators by the regime and the "problem of improving health through the use of mechanisms that violate basic rights."

"Enthusiasm around the Cuban health system often stems from an exclusive attention to one indicator, infant mortality rate (IMR), the value of which has been manipulated by a state seeking political legitimacy," writes Octavio Gómez-Dantés. 

For decades, Cuba has been battling Dengue outbreaks. In 1981, Cuba was plagued with another devastating epidemic of dengue fever that swept the island claiming 158 lives.

"The government went after the mosquito with what public health experts describe as paramilitary zeal and soon claimed victory," but Cuba's paramilitary-type of organizational structure to deal with health outbreaks "have no sustainability" and "once support and funds dry up, the program falls apart and the disease will come back with a vengeance," CDC former Director Duane Gubler once stated.