A resident of Bayamo, in the province of Granma, set social media ablaze by reporting in a Facebook video that state pharmacies in that city are selling medications with only a few days left before expiration, including paracetamol and azithromycin that expire on September 30.
Miredna Medina Hazlewood recorded the video on Friday and published it visibly upset. "It's outrageous that today, when it's heartbreaking to look at the pharmacy shelves that are completely empty... today in Bayamo, pharmacies are selling some medications like paracetamol, azithromycin, and others that are almost expired. To be more precise, with an expiration date of September 30, and today is the 11th," she pointed out.
What outrages the complainant the most is not only the impending expiration, but the unanswered question: where were those medications when the province was going through the worst moments of the dengue and chikungunya epidemics?
"Where were those medications that were not made available to the people when we were in the midst of a crisis from those two diseases? The dengue that killed so many people, the chikungunya that made people look like robots walking down the street," he questioned.
According to what Medina Hazlewood was informed, the medications came from the state "reserve." His reaction was immediate: "What reserve? The person needs the medication when they are sick."
The complaint carries special weight because Granma was one of the provinces most affected by the simultaneous outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya in 2025 and 2026.
The Pan American Health Organization documented over 51,000 suspected cases of chikungunya in Cuba since July 2025, with 46 deaths.
During those epidemics, the scarcity of basic pain relievers was particularly harsh: the video’s own creator recounted seeing elderly people in her community cry because they couldn't buy even a blister pack of paracetamol on the black market.
Medina Hazlewood also highlighted a contradiction that many Cubans perceive daily: "It is contradictory when today inspectors are checking the products of the self-employed, looking at the expiration dates of what they are selling... that they should take a quick look at the company that markets medications."
While the government monitors private workers, the state network distributes near-expiry medications with seemingly no oversight.
The complainant also warned about the real health risks: consuming an expired medication can, at best, be ineffective, and at worst, cause poisoning or an adverse reaction.
"The only people in the world who consume expired medication are us Cubans," he stated.
Medina Hazlewood closed her video with a personal confession: she has been unable to obtain an imported medication that she relies on for her health since January. "I fear that when I finally get to the pharmacy, it may already be close to its expiration date. And there, one definitely cannot play around with expired medications," she concluded.
The episode is set against the backdrop of the worst medication crisis Cuba has faced in decades. In August, Miguel Díaz-Canel himself publicly acknowledged that only 30% of the essential drug list is available in the country.
In provinces like Ciego de Ávila, availability has dropped to 10%, with only about 60 medications out of the 603 that make up the national essential medicines list.
The situation has tragic precedents. In September 2025, a child died in Santiago de Cuba after ingesting expired paracetamol from 2020, purchased outside of the official network.
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