2 | 26/01/2021 – 13:39 (GMT-4)
Cuban health authorities advised the population to resort to natural medicine to make up for the lack of medicines on the island, as reported by the pro-government media El Guerriller.
The head of the Provincial Department of Medicines and New Technologies, Odalys Lorenzo Morejón, “insisted on the use of natural and traditional medicine (MNT) as an alternative for various treatments and with great acceptance among the population,” he said in the note.
In Cuba there is a widespread shortage of medicines due to the deep economic crisis that the country is going through.
According to the official, the “most deficient pharmacological groups are oral antibiotics, analgesics, anti-inflammatory, antihistamines and anxiolytics,” which include popular drugs like dipyrone, chlordiazepoxide, and antibiotics like amoxicillin among many others.
Carlos Callava Couret, the master in Science and official of the MNT Program at the Provincial Directorate of Health, told the Pinar environment that phytopharmaceuticals such as lime and passionflower syrups can be used “as an alternative to ‘anxiolytics’.
Callava Couret added that oregano and aloe are able to prevent “respiratory infections”; and that “extracts of red mangrove, plantain, rosemary, holy cane, and aloe” can serve as an immunomodulator and healer.
As for the tinctures, the official referred to the fact that garlic and holy cane can reduce high blood pressure. While guava is antiseptic and antidiarrheal.
He also highlighted the use of honey in combination with passion fruit, ginger and Melito propolis. As suggested by traditional Chinese medicine (“acupuncture, moxas, suction cups, microsystems, and catgut seeding”) as an alternative to the drug crisis.
However, green medicine is also subject to the current shortage in Cuba, as the note itself clarifies that “many of these drugs are not available.”
The lack of drugs has been one of the most serious problems in Cuba in the last year. People have turned to social media to help them acquire missing medicines, while the state has lost production capacity, prioritizes exports and it is not the first time it has recommended natural medicine as a solution to the crisis.
“The basic picture of medicines has been lacking, for several months now, some products that are highly demanded and necessary for the population,” said the pro-government media.
Recently, in Holguin, authorities reported the circulation of a counterfeit drug after several patients arrived at medical institutions with side effects.
According to authorities it was “Clordiaze Poxido” 10 mg tablet, which did not correspond to the authorized and distributed 10 mg Cuban chlordiazepoxide.
This drug is one of the most demanded among the population of the island to calm the anxiety involved in dealing with daily life in the country. At the same time it is one of the rarest.
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