Dr. Mauricio Lanvaverde, Regional Advisor of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said in Havana that Cuba has a high quality program of immunization, full coverage of vaccination and care and affection with which it is run.

In the constitution of the National Expert Committee for Documentation and Verifying the Elimination of Measles and Rubella Syndrome Congenital in the Americas, the expert admired the existing vigilance on the island to protect children.

The aforementioned group is chaired by Dr. Miguel Angel Galindo, founder of
National Immunization Program, and its members Professor Evelio Cabezas, Doctors Berta Lidia Castro, Mabel Gonzalez, Angela Ribas and Ms. Liudmila Egües.

Lanvaverde clarified that work on the revision of the coverage of vaccination, and will examine all the evidence on epidemiological surveillance and the quality with which samples are analyzed in a laboratory in Cuba.

When you put together all these data which are recorded so that, when reviewed by the  international commission created for the continent American, they will attest to its veracity, he said.

Being a tropical country where there is no circulation of the poliomyelitis virus, and the excellent  quality of health care systems, the Pan American Health Organization asked for help from the island in this research that will help protect children when they eradicate this disease in the world, he said.

Dr. Lea Guido, representative in Havana of the Pan American and World Health Organization, reiterated that the island is an example in the immunization coverage and is certified free of Polio, which was eradicated in 1962.

In Cuba, 11 vaccines protect against 13 diseases, which led the previous year to the closing of the infant mortality rate at 4.5 per thousand live births, the lowest in the region, even lower than the U.S.

Dr. Luis Estruch, deputy minister of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health, said the Caribbean country has coverage of immunization from 98 to 100 percent, which has allowed 28 transmissible diseases to be under control.

Estrada congratulated the group of Cuban experts, recognized by the international institution in the field of measles, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome, evils in the world which cause deformities and death.

Translated by Daysi Olano

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