Brasilia, March 23 (RHC)-- Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff praised Cuba's dispatch of a medical brigade to the Italian region of Lombardy to combat the new coronavirus.

"The landing of a brigade of Cuban doctors this Sunday in the region of Lombardy is a strong action of cooperation and solidarity among nations,"  Roosseff wrote in an article published on her official website..

She pointed out that "Italy, although it happens to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, is currently the one that has lost the most lives due to the COVID-19."

The Cuban group of 36 doctors, 15 nursing graduates and a logistics specialist will serve in a newly built field hospital in the Lombard town of Crema, which has a population of 17,000.

Ecuador's former president, Rafael Correa, also referred to the issue on his Twitter account 

"Someday we will tell our children that after decades of films and propaganda, at the moment of truth, when humanity needed help at a time when the great powers were in hiding, Cuban doctors began to arrive without asking anything in return," wrote the former Ecuadorian leader.

@mashirafael Someday we will tell our children that after decades of films and propaganda, at the moment of truth, when humanity needed help at a time when the great powers were in hiding, Cuban doctors began to arrive without asking for anything in return. https://t.co/OBdXZqQ67u

— Radio Havana English (@havana_radio) March 23, 2020