Havana Times - November 28, 2025 – A severe health crisis is unfolding in Cuba, marked by widespread shortages of essential medicines, diagnostic limitations, and a crumbling public health infrastructure, according to reporting from Havana Times. The crisis centers around an arbovirus epidemic, exacerbated by systemic failures in sanitation and resource allocation.
Official government messaging focuses on individual preventative measures – “Cover your tank, turn over your bucket…” – but critics argue this deflects obligation from the state’s inability to provide basic services. Major breeding grounds for mosquitoes are identified as uncollected garbage accumulating into “micro-dumps” and persistent leaks from broken pipes creating stagnant water. While a single bucket can breed hundreds of larvae, these micro-dumps generate millions, yet the onus remains on individual citizens.
Diagnostic capabilities are severely hampered by a lack of reagents, forcing doctors to rely on clinical approximations, obscuring the true scale of the epidemic.Concurrently, critical medications – including steroids, IV fluids, and painkillers - have vanished from state pharmacies, becoming available only on the black market at prices inaccessible to most Cubans. The situation is compounded by a significant exodus of healthcare professionals, leaving critical staffing gaps within the system.
Patients seeking medical attention often receive only a work certificate, navigating a bureaucratic process even when treatment is unavailable. Official reports are described as scarce, incomplete, and delayed, leading many Cubans to self-medicate and remain outside official statistics.This creates a “parallel epidemic” largely unacknowledged by the state.
The current arbovirus crisis is presented as a symptom of broader systemic deterioration, including mismanagement and the abandonment of fundamental state functions. The author, Safie M. gonzález, concludes that the epidemic is a direct consequence of “disastrous state management.”
