- Vicente Morín Aguado
US Embargo on Cuba vs. Vaccines, Debunking Washington Post
(Original www.havanatimes.org. Slightly modified version for this publication.)
The Washington Post recently gave us a disturbing recommendation: “Next pandemic, let Cuba vaccinate the world.” Forgiving the exaggerated headline, the lack of information Achal Prabhala and Vitor Ido – the two authors of the article originally published on June 1st -, have about the tragedy of the Cuban people is quite unfortunate.
The commentators say that “The story of how Cuba was systematically blocked in its quest to make its own highly effective vaccines widely available offers crucial lessons.”
Informing yourself before writing is crucial, because the US is the main source of net foreign currency captured by the Cuban State. In early 2020, CNN published the following fragment from a report provided by the Inter-American Dialogue, an institution affiliated with the World Bank.
Last year, Cubans received US $2.055 billion in direct money transfers as remittances:
“1,042,451 out of a total of nearly 4 million households in Cuba received remittances over the period (approximately 26%), an average of 2,210 USD per household. The US is the main source of these remittances, accounting for US $1.721 billion, or 83.72% of the total.”
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