Cuban doctors to help with novel drug arrival in Slovakia

Cuban experts who were planned to arrive to Slovakia in March to treat so-called diabetic foot illness with a Cuban medicine have arrived in Slovakia, said Health Ministry spokesperson Zuzana Eliášová to the TASR press agency. "They'll begin to train Slovak doctors later this week," she said. The pilot stage of administering the novel medication will take place at J.A. Reiman Faculty Hospital in Prešov. Treatment will then be provided to patients at the University Hospital in Bratislava and at the F.D. Roosevelt Faculty Hospital in Banská Bystrica. The medication, Heberprot-P, isn't registered in Europe, and Slovakia will be the first EU country to administer it. The medicine is being provided as part of Cuba's debt repayment following a recent visit to this country by Health Minister Tomáš Drucker and Finance Minister Peter Kažimír. Cuba offered the same drug to the Czech Republic to help repay its debt to that country. The Czech Government, however, has taken a more cautious approach.