Cuba will demand a recent negative PCR test on all travelers arriving in its territory, after reporting a record 217 cases of covid-19 on Thursday, the local press announced Friday.
“As of January 10, all travelers entering the country will be required to carry a real-time PCR performed up to 72 hours earlier by certified laboratories in the countries of origin,” said the official Granma newspaper.
The newspaper of the ruling Communist Party (PCC, the only one) stressed that Cuba on Thursday reported 217 cases of the new coronavirus, including 101 imported cases, “the highest number of infections since the start of the epidemic” in March.
He also reported that this decision is part of a group of actions by the Cuban government “to step up containment measures against Covid-19, with cases mainly caused by foreign nationals.”
The Head of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health of Cuba (Minsap), Francisco Durán, said this Friday that “this measure will undoubtedly have an impact” because “there is a group of people who will not arrive (to the infected island), and the number of “imported cases” will decrease.
In his usual press conference on Friday, Durán explained that the new measure does not cancel the protocol that requires every traveler to undergo a diagnostic PCR test upon arrival on the island and then limit their travel until they have the results. proof.
Durán emphasized that of the 1,311 infections reported by Cuba in the past 15 days, 838 were imported, mainly from the United States, Russia, India, Venzuela and France.
“In a few days, we had more imported cases than native cases,” said the expert.
Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million, collected 10,900 cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, with 140 dead and 9,503 recovered, a far more favorable situation than some of its neighbors in the region.