South Korea and Unicef sent 213,000 bottles of prenatal supplements to Cuba intended for approximately 30,430 pregnant women and nursing mothers on the island, as reported by the UN agency this Friday, marking one of the most significant donations in maternal health the country has received in recent years.
The acquisition was entirely financed by the South Korean government, as part of a cooperation project between South Korea and UNICEF running from October 2025 to September 2026, with a total contribution of 1 million dollars aimed at strengthening care for pregnant women, newborns, and children, with a focus on the eastern part of the country and Havana.
The shipment faced logistical obstacles: due to the impossibility of transporting it by sea, Unicef opted to transport it by air from Panama City to Havana, absorbing the additional costs that this change of route entailed.
"Saving lives cannot wait," justified the agency in explaining the decision.
The donation comes at a time of serious deterioration in maternal and child health in Cuba, exacerbated by decades of poor governance by the regime and a structural crisis that has deepened in recent years.
Cuba ended 2025 with an infant mortality rate of 9.9 per 1,000 live births, the highest level in over twenty years, while the maternal mortality rate stood at 44.1 per 100,000 live births that same year.
The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, publicly acknowledged that only 30% of the essential medication inventory was available in the country, and that pharmacies had merely 32% of the essential products.
In April of this year, more than 32,000 pregnant women had been identified as being at risk due to the combination of energy crisis and medication shortages, according to reports on the maternal and child crisis that have scrutinized the regime's management.
The South Korean donation is part of a broader wave of international humanitarian aid that Cuba has received in 2026.
Among the recent donors are Brazil, which provided antituberculous medications to treat one thousand patients; Russia, which delivered a batch of 35 types of medications in April; the Bahamas, which donated pediatric oncology medications this month; and Chile, which channeled 1 million dollars through Unicef for health, nutrition, and child protection.
In April, the UN also proposed a humanitarian plan of 94.1 million dollars to address health and food needs on the island, a figure that reflects the magnitude of the emergency faced by the Cuban population.
Related videos:
Filed under: