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Cuba Boasts Low Mortality Rate of Children with Leukemia

CUBA, May 25, 2009. Contrary to the sad situation existing in Cuba before the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, today 70 percent of children with acute leukemia, the most common kind of cancer in children, are saved.

Before 1965, all children with leukemia in Cuba would die and those suffering from sickle cell anemia only made it to the first stage of their adolescence; these children now live to age 50 and beyond.

Dr. Eva Svarch made this announcement Thursday at the Hematology 2009 International Conference ongoing until Friday in Havana, reported the Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

Dr. Svarch, who is also an assistant professor of Pediatrician Services at the Hematology and Immunology Institute, noted that leukemia is a chronic, incurable disease that can be controlled with medicines and simple measures that should be closely supervised by parents.

Since 1986, pre-birth diagnosis tests for this disorder have been carried out at the Cuban National Institute of Genetics.

Mortality rates of children with sickle cell anemia has drastically dropped over the past 20 years, with only four deaths reported by the Hematology and Immunology Institute in that period of time.

Cuba is one of the Latin American countries that provides the best treatments to sickle cell anemia patients. Other countries in the Caribbean that excel in this area are Jamaica, Guadalupe and Martinique.
(Cubaminrex- ACN)

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