Related videos:
Health authorities have intensified epidemiological surveillance due to outbreaks of hepatitis in several municipalities, with the most critical situation concentrated in the Versalles neighborhood of the city of Matanzas, where 18 active cases have been recorded.
The information was released this Friday by the provincial telecenter TV Yumurí through its Facebook profile, citing Dr. Andrés Lamas Acevedo, director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology, and Microbiology, who specified that the cases in Versalles are distributed across areas "from the Plácido pharmacy to the Yumurí River, the Americano neighborhood near the Cumbre, and areas close to the Ernest Thaelman school."
The specialist acknowledged the relative seriousness of the situation, although he tried to downplay the alarm: "Although it is not a large-scale outbreak, the joint actions between the health sector and other agencies will help to cut transmission."
In addition to Versalles, the La Marina neighborhood in the municipality of Cárdenas has seven active cases, while the outbreaks detected in the towns of Pálpite and Cidra are nearing closure as no new cases have been reported for approximately a month.
The authorities also alerted about the presence of isolated cases of hepatitis in most municipalities of the province.
The disease is transmitted via the fecal-oral route, primarily through the consumption of contaminated water or food, and its contagious period ranges from seven days before the onset of symptoms to 15 days after they begin.
In light of the situation, the authorities insist on escalating hygiene and sanitation measures, including boiling and chlorinating drinking water, ensuring proper disposal of solid waste, protecting food, and isolating patients in their homes with exclusive-use utensils.
The current crisis is neither new nor surprising. On March 7, the Provincial Government had already urged the population to boil and chlorinate water due to reports of isolated cases of hepatitis, amid power outages that lasted up to 70 hours and paralyzed water pumps in multiple locations.
Around March 20th, Radio 26 alerted about an outbreak in Cidra, in the municipality of Unión de Reyes, with 11 confirmed cases, directly linked to water quality issues.
The situation in Matanzas is part of a structural water crisis affecting all its municipalities, with months-long breakdowns in the pumping systems, open wells in sidewalks and yards, and private water trucks costing between 6,000 and 8,000 pesos.
This precarious situation, exacerbated by the energy crisis, creates a breeding ground for the spread of fecal-oral diseases such as hepatitis A, which infected more than 5,000 residents in a single outbreak in the Reina neighborhood of Cienfuegos in 2024 due to drinking water contamination.
In January, the independent journalist reported on the outbreak of hepatitis A spreading in various areas of eastern Cuba, such as Santiago de Cuba, in a context marked by severe sanitation issues, garbage accumulation, sewer system collapse, and deterioration of the drinking water system, according to alerts received from those regions.
Filed under: