They ask to clarify the medical diagnosis of a seriously ill teenager at a hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

Relatives of Héctor Eduardo Tamayo Burgos, 17 years old, are asking for clarification regarding the medical diagnosis of the teenager, who is in critical condition at a hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

Those close to the young man say he has been admitted to the "La Colonia" Children's Hospital in Santiago de Cuba for over a week, and doctors have not yet identified the cause of his critical condition.

Initially, Tamayo Burgos was admitted to a Miscellaneous ward due to the lack of beds in the intensive care unit. For the past three days, the young man has been in the Intensive Care Unit, where he remains in a vegetative state, with oxygen and other life support, as explained by a family member to the independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada.

His cousin, Yurina Otero Tamayo, commented that "at first they had him in a General Store room because there was no bed available in the therapy room. Now he does not speak and is on oxygen and all, he is in a vegetative state and the saddest part is that the doctors have not given a diagnosis."

Héctor Eduardo, an 11th-grade student, lives in the Luis Dagness neighborhood in Altamira with his father, Eduardo Tamayo Rodríguez, while his mother is incarcerated.

"We are desperate, they just say he is critical. What we want and demand is for them to give us a diagnosis so that he can be treated and he does not suffer anymore," added his cousin.

The province of Santiago de Cuba is currently facing a complex epidemiological situation with the confirmation of the circulation of four viruses: dengue, influenza, oropouche, and SARS-CoV-2, the latter being the cause of COVID-19, as official sources warned on Wednesday.

Aris Batalla, representative of the Red Cross in Santiago de Cuba, warned on Facebook that the presence of these viruses puts the population at risk, which must take extreme preventive measures in the midst of an extreme shortage of medications such as analgesics and antipyretics.

At the same time, the national director of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), Francisco Durán, acknowledged that the country does not have fuel to fumigate against mosquitoes, amid an increasing presence of the Oropouche virus in Cuba.

In that context, it was revealed yesterday that the provincial hospital Saturnino Lora in Santiago de Cuba is overwhelmed, lacking beds and resources, to attend to the increasing arrival of patients.

The journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada published on his Facebook page images and the testimony of a person according to whom, a family member arrived at the medical center with shortness of breath, and there were no oxygen cylinders available, as they were reserved for severe cases.

He also reported that the observation room was overcrowded, full of flies, and without beds or air conditioning, despite the Oropouche fever and dengue pandemic affecting that area.