CUBA SENDS MORE DOCTORS

[Communications Officer]

Havana. The first contingent of Cuban doctors specializing in assisting after natural disasters and serious epidemics headed for Haiti, following the massive earthquake that struck the impoverished Caribbean country on Tuesday.

The brigade was first established to offer help to the United States when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, an offer rejected by ex-President George W. Bush.

Since then the brigade has been on the scene after earthquakes in Pakistan and China, the Tsunami in Indonesia and major flooding in Guatemala and Bolivia. Cuba already had 344 doctors and other health professionals working full time in Haiti under an agreement with the Haitian government.