Havana, October 20 (RHC) Cuban President Raul Castro urged presidents of ALBA-TCP members to take special measures to prevent the lethal Ebola virus to affect the region, during the opening early Monday of the special meeting in Havana to analyze a strategy to deal with this crisis.

The Cuban president told summit participants that the terrible epidemic is currently spreading in African sister nations and threatening the entire world. He requested to prevent the use of Ebola for political purposes. Raul also warned the need to assume the struggle against Ebola with responsibility because the virus has caused the death of over 4,400 people in West Africa.

“If this threat is not stopped in West Africa (…) it can become one of the most serious pandemics in human history,” said Raul Castro. He recalled that “African blood streams through the veins of our America.”

The Cuban president highlighted the Cuban health expertise and reminded that a Cuban medical brigade is currently in Sierra Leone to help this people fight the Ebola outbreak. He pointed out that Cuba has over 45,000 collaborators working on 25 Latin American and Caribbean countries and 23,158 of them are doctors and paramedics.

Two other medical brigades will travel Tuesday Oct. 21 to Liberia and Guinea to cooperate in the struggle against Ebola, the president announced.

Raul Castro underlined that the current Ebola outbreak is a challenge for humanity and all countries must urgently face it. Cuba is prepared to work 'shoulder to shoulder' with all countries, including the United States, to fight the disease.

Participating in the ALBA-TCP summit are presidents from Venezuela Nicolàs Maduro, Bolivia Evo Morales, Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, Haiti Michael Martelly, among others.

ALBA country members include Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as well as Haiti, Grenada and San Kits and Nevis.