We Cubans are very confident, and we must be aware of this because it has been demonstrated that the new coronavirus does not understand age differences or any other type of differences, warns the young doctor Yasmani Sunamé Ramírez, one of the health professionals in Las Tunas who has been directly involved in the confrontation with COVID-19.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- We still lack the perception of risk, and I think that a good way to collaborate is to inform immediately if you suffer from any symptoms or know of someone who has them, because at this moment, having a cold does not mean carrying the virus, but we have to fight together in this to get ahead, said Sanamé to the Cuban News Agency (ACN) in telephone contact with the municipality of "Jesús Menéndez," where he lives.
In that territory, located in the north of the province, Yasmani and six other professionals from the Public Health System are part of the work and fast response team that evaluated and treated an Italian patient who tested positive for COVID-19, and his wife, the first positive case with the disease in the province.
At only 30 years of age, the specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine is also an emergency physician, and he told the ACN that although he worked in indigenous communities in Brazil for a year and a half, the responsibility with a disease that is totally new, is never forgotten, despite all the preparation and information they received, even when the pandemic did not yet affect the country.
The doctor commented that the work of Immigration was very valuable in immediately warning of the presence of an Italian citizen in the community of Guayacán, in "Jesús Menéndez," taking into account that he had arrived in the country from the region of Lombardy, on the same flight in which the first three positive cases of COVID-19 were traveling to in Cuba.
That's when the evaluation process began," he explained, "and although when he was first visited he showed no symptoms related to the virus, he was told to stay in the home until further notice.
It was a matter of two days before they began with a dry cough and fever, so the team moved them to the corresponding isolation centers in Holguín and Las Tunas, Yasmani said, while remembering exactly which days of the week the medical journey took place.
Once again and equipped with all the established means of protection, they returned to Guayacán to follow up with the closest contacts and others not so close, processing the entry and evaluation of each one of them as a more effective measure to prevent transmission to other people.
A pediatrician, a clinician, an epidemiologist and I as a specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine, together with the fast response team, are located at the Mario Pozo polyclinic, but there, in the community, the Primary Health Care Basic Working Group continues to follow up daily, even twice a day, the people who live there, he said.
It took Yasmani almost a day to respond to the ACN message to tell of his experience in this difficult work: "Journalist, I'm sorry for the delay, but last night I got home very late and I didn't even have my phone with me," he said.
