Donate to Support Cuba’s Contribution to the World Fight Against COVID-19

Dear Friends of Cuba,

It seems as if the path being taken by Hurricane Delta spares Cuba from a possible powerful hurricane. That is good news.  It gives the CNC time to reflect on and thank you for your very generous response to Support Cuba’s Contribution to the World`s Fight Against COVID-19, since we won’t have to initiate a campaign for hurricane relief.

The CNC is pleased to inform you that we have now sent $53,412 to Cuba.  This is a significant contribution at a time of uncertainties in the national and international spheres.  It demonstrates your trust in and commitment to Cuba’s vision of public health and its international efforts to cope with COVID-19.  

 Cuba and two other countries, Russia and China, are making it clear that economically deprived sectors of humanity will be included among those users of their vaccines against COVID-19.  Cuba collaborates with these two countries in the production, packaging and distribution of vaccines against COVID-19, and that would probably ensure Cuba’s supply from these sources. Nevertheless, the Cubans are working to produce their own safe and efficient vaccine for humanity and for themselves, as well they should, with their great historical research record.

When the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica tell you that Walter Reed was a “U.S. Army pathologist and bacteriologist who led the experiments that proved that yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito” don’t believe them, despite President Trump’s recent high praise of the hospital named after Walter Reed.  The fact is that Carlos Finlay, a Cuban scientist, was the first to identify the Aedes aegypti mosquito as the vector of yellow fever, a disease that took a heavy toll among the patriotic Cubans who fought in their war of Independence from Spain.  Many American soldiers who intervened in the war when it was about to be won by these patriots also died from yellow fever.

The properly named Carlos Finlay Institute became the vaccine research centre where a team of Cuban scientists, led by Concepción Campa, a true heroine of science, invented the meningococcal B vaccine that in the 1980s quelled a raging tide of meningitis that was on a course to destroying a catastrophic number of young Cuban and other lives. Some in North America came to prefer a vaccine from Norway to this safe and effective Cuban one, but there was a torrent of lawsuits brought against the Norwegian makers for personal injury.

The outstanding work of Cuba’s “Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade: Specializing in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics” since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the world is motivating many individuals and organizations to initiate and support campaigns to nominate the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for the Nobel Peace Prize.  We strongly support the drive to give this important recognition to a group of perennial standard bearers for José Martí’s vision of melded science and tenderness. The Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade has now been accepted as an entry for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.

The anti-COVID-19 fund remains open and we will gratefully continue to send collected funds to Cuba.  
WHO has officially recognized 2 Cuban vaccines that are now in the final group of testing. They do not require expensive refrigeration. They will be free to all Cubans and Cuba will offer to needy nations at a reduced cost.

100 percent of all funds raised have been and will be sent to Cuba. 
Cheques should be made payable to the  CNC               and just write Covid 19  on the memo line.
Mail to:   CNC   c/o Sharon Skup, 56 Riverwood Terrace, Bolton, Ontario L7E 1S4.    
We are not able to provide charitable tax receipts, but we send receipts for the donations, together with our thanks for your support. 

Thank you very much for your solidarity and generosity.

      Keith Ellis, Coordinator, Cuba Against COVID-19 Campaign      Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC)