By María Josefina Arce

Seventy-five years after the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world is witnessing the maintenance by the United States for more than six decades of a genocidal economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, which violates the most elementary prerogatives of an entire people.
   
The condemnation of this unilateral and criminal measure has intensified year after year. Governments, peoples and personalities from different spheres have expressed their rejection of a policy that seeks to change the Cuban system by provoking hunger, disease and discontent among the population.
  
Thus, in the last few hours, the Russian State Duma approved a resolution calling for the lifting of the sanctions that have caused the largest of the Antilles considerable damage and, above all, pain and suffering to generations of Cubans.
   
The president of the Russian legislative body, Vyacheslav Volodin, pointed out that the United States will have to compensate Cuba for the losses caused by the blockade, which from May 2022 to February this year caused monthly damages of more than 405 million dollars.
     
Beyond the figures, the hostility of this policy is felt by the citizens on a daily basis. No sphere of the country's socioeconomic life escapes this cruel siege. Let's take a closer look at the effects on the health sector, whose free and universal access has been guaranteed by the Cuban revolution since its triumph in January 1959.
   
During this period, the Cuban health system suffered losses of more than 239 million 803 thousand dollars, which exceeds the damages reported before the arrival of COVID 19.
   
It is a reality the tensions experienced by this vital branch of the economy, which have resulted in the quality of the services provided to the population. The production of medicines has been significantly impaired, due to the country's impossibility of acquiring the required raw materials.
   
Added to this are the obstacles to the acquisition of necessary equipment and parts for their maintenance, which have to be purchased in distant markets, increasing their price.
   
As stated in the report on the damage caused by the blockade, recently presented in Havana by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, this situation has a particularly harsh impact on the most vulnerable people, such as children diagnosed with cancer.
   
This policy maintained by the United States for more than six decades is inhumane and cruel and denies Cubans with various pathologies essential medicines because they are produced by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. It is a fact that the blockade is an attack on the right to life of Cubans.