Washington, July 6 (RHC)-- The Cuban ambassador to the United States, José Ramón Cabañas, has criticized the news coverage that the U.S. media is giving to the Caribbean island.

"It seems that the corporate media in the United States can only find news about Cuba these days if they have access to official (horrible) statements from the State Department or programmed official 'leaks'", the diplomat wrote on Twitter.

Cabañas considered that type of coverage of Cuba is "a shame," because then there will be no information in the U.S. press about "Cuba's success story" in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cuban ambassador's statement comes at a time when the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is tightening the blockade imposed by the United States against the Caribbean nation almost 60 years ago, and increasing the attacks against Cuban medical missions abroad.

Brigades of health professionals from the island, belonging to the International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Situations of Disasters and Serious Epidemics, have traveled to more than 30 nations around the world to participate in the fight against the pandemic.

An international campaign supported by more than 100 organizations and individuals is calling for these doctors to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, the successes and contributions of Cuban professionals abroad and within Cuba itself, where the pandemic was successfully contained and the country is moving through Phases One and Two of the recovery stage, are almost completely absent from the mainstream American media.

Much of the information disseminated in the United States focuses on the declarations of the State Department accusing Cuba of alleged human trafficking in these medical missions, which are recognized by the nations where they provide services and by international organizations.

At the end of last April, Cabañas described as "an insult" the slanderous statements on the island's medical cooperation published by The Washington Post.  In a letter sent to the newspaper's editorial board, which they deliberately ignored, the diplomat said that the newspaper was seeking to "denigrate the commendable work done and voluntarily performed throughout this time by hundreds of thousands of Cuban health professionals and technicians in various countries."

Only recently, at the end of June, that same newspaper acknowledged that Cuba gave an efficient response to COVID-19 and in an article, which was not exempt from its usual nuances about the island, it highlighted the measures taken in the Antillean nation to prevent and contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.