While the international community has been accused of dragging its feet on the Ebola crisis, Cuba, a\u00a0country of\u00a0just\u00a011 million people that still enjoys a fraught relationship with the United States, has emerged as a\u00a0crucial\u00a0provider of medical expertise\u00a0in the West African nations hit by Ebola.<\/p>\n
On Thursday [2 Oct 2014],\u00a0165 health professionals<\/a> from the country arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join the fight against Ebola \u2013\u00a0the largest medical team of any\u00a0single foreign nation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And after being trained to deal with Ebola, a further\u00a0296 Cuban doctors and nurses<\/a> will go to Liberia and Guinea, the other two countries worst hit by the crisis.<\/p>\n Cuba is, by any measure, not a wealthy\u00a0country. It had a\u00a0Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of slightly more than $68\u00a0billion in 2011<\/a>, according to the World Bank, putting it a few places higher than Belarus. At $6,051, its GDP per capita was less than one-sixth of Britain’s.\u00a0However, its official response to Ebola seems far more robust than many countries far wealthier than it\u00a0\u2013 and serves as further proof that health-care professionals are up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.<\/p>\n Cuba’s universal health-care system enables such an export. The country\u00a0nationalized its health care shortly after its revolution, ending private health care and guaranteeing free health care in its constitution<\/a>. The results have been widely praised.\u00a0In 2008, evaluating 30 years of Cuba’s “primary health care revolution,” the Bulletin of the World Health Organization\u00a0pointed to\u00a0impressive\u00a0strides that the country had made in certain health indicators. “These indicators \u2013 which are close or equal to those in developed countries \u2013 speak for themselves,” Gail Reed noted<\/a>, pointing to a huge reduction in number of deaths for children under five years old and Cuba’s high life expectancy of 77 years.<\/p>\n Cuba’s health-care success is built upon\u00a0its medical training. After the Cuban revolution,\u00a0half of the country’s 6,000 doctors fled<\/a> and the country was forced to rebuild its work force. The training system grew so much that by\u00a02008, it was training\u00a020,000 foreigners a year<\/a> to be\u00a0doctors, nurses and dentists, largely free of charge.<\/p>\n Ebola isn’t the first time that Cuban health workers have been sent to deal with a global disaster. Even back in\u00a01960, immediately after the revolution, Cuba sent doctors to Chile to help in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, and the practice has continued for decades since. In 2005, Cuba even offered to send medical workers to the United States after Hurricane Katrina in 2005<\/a>\u00a0(they were apparently rebuffed).<\/p>\n Reuters reports that Cuba\u00a0currently has around 50,000 health workers<\/a> working in 66 countries. Despite the high-profile acts of charity, the medical diplomacy more often seemed to serve more practical purposes\u00a0\u2013 an estimated 30,000 health workers are currently in\u00a0Venezuela as a partial payment for oil<\/a>, for example. Exported medical expertise\u00a0is predicted to net Cuba\u00a0$8.2 billion in 2014, according to a recent report in\u00a0state newspaper\u00a0Granma<\/a>. There are hopes that medical tourism and exported medical technology could one day provide similar figures.<\/p>\n It’s not a simple picture. Critics have complained that Cuba has begun to sacrifice the health of its citizens at home to make money sending medical workers abroad, and the conditions for these medical workers themselves have been criticized\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this year<\/a>\u00a0that a significant number of Cuban health-care workers in Venezuela have fled the country to escape “crushing” workloads.<\/p>\n Even so,\u00a0Cuba’s oversized response to Ebola seems to have brushed aside these criticisms, for now at least. The number of Cuban medical staff in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea looks set to be more than\u00a0those sent from\u00a0far-larger countries like China<\/a>. Israel, a wealthier country with a similar population, caused controversy this week when its Defense Minister rejected requests to send<\/a> medical workers to Ebola-struck countries, though the Foreign Ministry has since announced<\/a> it would in fact send medical crews.<\/p>\n \u201cMoney and materials are important, but those two things alone cannot stop Ebola virus transmission,\u201d Dr Margaret Chan, director-general at the World Health Organization, said last month<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cHuman resources are clearly our most important need.”<\/p>\n ______________________________<\/p>\n Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for <\/em>The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.<\/em><\/p>\n Update: This post has been updated to include the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s announcement.<\/em><\/p>\n Read more: How the world failed to stop the Ebola outbreak<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n