A team of 200 doctors from Cuba will arrive in South Africa on Sunday to assist officials in stemming the spread of the coronavirus.
The island nation boasts a strong health care system and many students from Africa study medicine Cuba.
In previous cases of crisis, Cuban doctors were the first to arrive in Africa to help fight Ebola.
SABC News Foreign Editor Sophie Mokoena says the group consists of highly skilled medical doctors.
“One thing many people always talk about is the level of medical training in Cuba particularly their primary health care. They have a huge talent but also experience and expertise, they will be able to share their experiences and they’ll be able to assist.”
“It will be a good thing for them to share information of their experience with our own medical teams here in South Africa in different parts, particularly in provinces where you have high numbers.”
In this video below, Cuba agree to help South Africa fights the spread of the coronavirus:
In March Communist-run Cuba said it dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy to help in the fight against the novel coronavirus at the request of the worst-affected region Lombardy.
The Caribbean island sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution.
Yet with the 52-strong brigade, it is the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, one of the world’s richest countries, demonstrating the reach of its medical diplomacy.
This is the sixth medical brigade Cuba sent in March to combat the spread of the new disease abroad.
It sent contingents to socialist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada.
“We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfil, so we take out fear and put it to one side,” Leonardo Fernandez, 68, an intensive care specialist, told Reuters late on Saturday shortly before his brigade’s departure. He who says he is not afraid is a superhero, but we are not superheroes, we are revolutionary doctors.”
In the video below, Italy Health Minister says the country is facing the most difficult moment in history:
