Cuban Public Health Minister, Jose Angel Portal Miranda.

Havana July 12 (RHC)—The Cuban Minister of Public Health Jose Angel Portal Miranda reiterated on Monday the critical epidemiological situation the country is going through and urged the population to remain aware of each individual´s responsibility in the efforts to curb the current peak of the pandemic.

Fielding questions from Cuban journalists in a press conference hosted by the President on National Television, Portal said the island is currently experiencing the highest infection rate since the beginning of the pandemic.

This, he added has led to a substantial increase in the use of bed capacities, and to some failures in some territories.

As of July 10, Cuba had diagnosed 238 491 cases. Havana, Matanzas, and Santiago de Cuba accumulate 59.4 % of all the cases confirmed on the island.

The Minister waned that as an average, the island is reporting 4445 cases in July, what shows the current transmission speed of the disease.

The circulation of the Alfa, Belt, and Delta strains of the virus, according to Cuban experts, has had an impact on the transmissibility.

In the case, of Matanzas, the Minister acknowledged that notwithstanding the efforts, there are still limitations; there have been failures in the attention like the shortage of doctors in the Family Doctor offices because their staff had to be deployed in COVID isolation centers.