Brasilia, April 23 (RHC)-- Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff expressed her gratitude to Cuban health professionals who participated in the founding of the "Mais Medicos" ("More Doctors") program, which brought health care to the nation's most remote communities.

Rousseff said that "if the Cuban doctors were still around, Brazil would be in a better position to face this difficult moment."

During Rousseff's administration, from January 1, 2011 until August 31, 2016, more than 11,000 doctors from Cuba provided solidarity assistance in Brazil, helping to eradicate various diseases in the most disadvantaged communities.

The More Doctors program was created in 2013 on the initiative of the then president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, in order to guarantee the presence of national and foreign doctors in poor and remote areas of the South American giant.

In November 2018, the Cuban government announced the forced departure of all the aid workers from the island from Brazilian territory, due to the false accusations made by the ruler of that country, Jair Bolsonaro, who described the doctors as terrorists or spies of the so-called Cuban "dictatorship."

As a result, millions of people were left unprotected and without guarantees of medical care, a situation which has been aggravated by the current expansion of the new coronavirus, whose death toll has risen to more than 2,000 in Brazil.