Cuban Medical Brigade celebrates scientific day |06 June 2022

In celebration of the annual scientific day, the Cuban Medical Brigade in Seychelles presented more than twenty scientific results based on their experiences in medical care in Seychelles.

This took place at the Sheikh Khalifa diagnostic centre on Saturday.

The Republic of Cuba and Seychelles established relations on April 12, 1978. The relation between the two countries has strengthened through various bilateral agreements revealed through the 300 Seychellois graduates.

Present to celebrate this scientific event was the Cuban ambassador to Seychelles, Martha Hernandez Caneiro; the Cuban consul in Seychelles, Tomas Mendez; Dr Reinel Rodriguez, president of the scientific community; Dr Xavier Rose, consultant pediatrician at the Seychelles Hospital; Dr Sanjeev Pugazhendhi and other medical staff.

The aim of the event was to share, provide knowledge and to team build as science is the main actor and the population of Seychelles is the beneficiaries of scientific exchange.

Dr Aymara Rivero inaugurated the conference and stated that the medical environment is always changing, evolving and developing with newer research.

She added that “health was faced with the most challenging time during these past two years”.

Dr Rose noted that the conference is of high level importance and assured the Cuban Medical Brigade that the Seychelles values their hard work.

Dr Sanjeev gave a presentation on the health status and service utilisation pattern in Seychelles, noting the pattern of health and diseases, vital statistics : births, deaths, causes of mortality and morbidity, risk factors for diseases and more.

The statistics, which so far is not yet in public domain, shows that the population is increasing steadily but birth rates is declining in terms of population size. The population pyramid of 2021 indicates that there are 51% males and 49% females. 22% is aged 15 and 12% 65 years and above. The pyramid also shows that there are more male in the working age group.

Total live births are at 1672 in 2021 compared to 1645 in 2018. The total of still births was 12 in 2018 and jumped to 14 in 2021.

Hypertension and diabetes trends were also displayed with 39% hypertension present in all deaths in 2021 and 21% diabetes present in all deaths in 2021. In 2021, 34 people started haemodialysis anew with 186 individuals in ESRF long term dialysis. 26 dialysis patients died in 2021, and 11 from that was from Covid-19.

The cumulative data 2013 to 2021 also showed that there was almost an equal number of reported cases of intentional self-harm among men and women, 47% and 53% respectively. Predominantly 83% of suicides were among men and 17% in women.

The leading cause of death is through cardiovascular disease followed by Covid-19 which was put on the list of death related diseases. Deaths from accidents and injuries reduced significantly in the past two years coincidentally with the imposed curfew. Related to diseases another key component which came out was that women who suffered strokes are more likely to die than men.

Dr Rodriguez noted that here in Seychelles the Cuban community has various specialties and the conference is to aid them share methods of the work as well as with the other doctors on the islands.

“More or less everybody does the same to try to improve the health services in Seychelles, which is the main subject even though we are going to share the results,” he said.

The conference is a joint activity and work of the Cuban and Seychellois doctors.

Marla Simeon