Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Cuban medical brigade arrives in Italy as ministers round on EU over lack of support
Several of the Cuban doctors and medical professionals that will depart for Italy to assist with the pandemic in the country pose for the media with a photo of Fidel Castro and flags of Italy and Cuba, in Havana, Cuba

A CUBAN medical brigade arrived in Italy at the weekend, the sixth such mission dispatched to assist other countries with the coronavirus pandemic.

Havana has already sent missions to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada, but its mission to Italy is its first ever to the much richer country.

“We are all afraid, but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfil, so we take out fear and put it to one side,” intensive care specialist Leonardo Fernandez told Reuters.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
US President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shake hands as they pose for a photo at the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit in Egypt, October 13, 2025
Eyes Wright / 16 July 2026
16 July 2026

NICK WRIGHT continues his series analysing the trends in European politics

VITAL TO THE COMMUNITY: Cuban doctor Daysi Luperon Loforte (right) help lift up patient Francesco Ascone at the Santa Maria degli Ungheresi Hospital of Polistena on June 16, 2026
Cuba health care / 9 July 2026
9 July 2026

PAOLO SANTALUCIA reports on how an Italian region defies US pressure to end a Cuban doctors programme

IN YOUTH WE TRUST: Supporters of the
Features / 26 March 2026
26 March 2026

Italians reject controversial judiciary reforms in a referendum that boosts the left, reports NICK WRIGHT