Cuba has long been renowned for its health care system. The island nation of 11 million maintains a ratio of 8.4 doctors per 1,000 citizens, the highest for any country according to the World Bank.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a significant threat to this system, as housing shortages and limited financial resources continue to remain widespread issues for the country. Despite this, Cuba has maintained a relatively low number of cases in comparison to similar-sized countries, with The New York Times reporting 2,119 total cases and 83 deaths as of June 5.

This has led some to argue that the successes of the Cuban health care system and COVID-19 response can serve as a model for other countries still combating the virus.

Universal Health Care

One of the hallmarks of the Cuban health care system is that it is available to all citizens either for free or at a significantly reduced cost. This can be attributed to the nation maintaining a deeply centralized authoritarian government, which allows for strict control on the prices of medical goods and services.

Cuba’s health care system is by no means perfect. The nation still faces shortages on a number of medical resources, and access to more advanced procedures is often limited to the larger cities like Havana and Santiago de Cuba. However, Cuba has continued to retain low infant mortality rates and high life expectancies, numbers which outpace similarly developed countries and are on par with those of the global north.

A Rapid Domestic Response

The Cuban Ministry of Public Health implemented a “prevention and control” plan on January 28, a solid month and a half before the country would see its first positive COVID-19 case on March 18. The plan outlined concrete details as to when and how the nation would limit international travel in the name of public health, as well as policies for how virus relief resources would be distributed throughout the island.

The plan was fully implemented on March 20 with a ban on tourist arrivals to the island and the enforcement of domestic quarantine procedures. At the time, Cuba had only 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The nation began mass testing on May 11 to further contain the spread of the virus.

The swift implementation of the “prevention and control” plan proved successful; the number of active COVID-19 cases peaked at 849 on April 25. The Ministry of Public Health reported that the number of active cases in the country had dropped to 161 as of May 28.

Cuban Doctors Abroad

Beginning in 1963 with the stationing of 56 Cuban doctors in Algeria, Cuba has continued to send doctors, nurses and health care workers abroad on both a voluntary and monetary basis, which has grown to an estimated 28,000 Cuban medical professionals working abroad today. This practice of medical diplomacy has continued into the COVID-19 era, with the nation having sent over 2,300 medical personnel abroad to over 24 countries to combat the virus as of May 26.

While some countries like the United States have refused this sort of outside medical aid, others have been more welcoming to Cuban health care workers. Italy welcomed two separate teams of Cuban doctors to Lombardy and Piedmont, two of the hardest hit regions in the country, during the pandemic’s height in the country.

Critics have argued that the practice of sending doctors abroad is merely a form of exploitative diplomacy done in an effort to legitimize the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba. That said, the vast majority of Cuba’s medical diplomatic efforts are done in developing countries whose citizens would otherwise have no access to quality medical care.