TOP STORY

Cuba Marks 15 Years
Treating Chernobyl Victims

By Conner Gorry

Victims of the Chernobyl explosion first arrived for treatment in Cuba in 1990.

When disaster strikes, the world is riveted. Who can forget Mt. St Helen’s spewing ash over Washington State or the thousands of corpses stacked like logs after the chemical plant catastrophe in Bhopal, India?

Unfortunately, once the immediate crisis is contained and the headlines shift to the next big story, world attention fades. This is precisely what happened after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, now largely forgotten in many places. But not in Cuba, where over 18,000 children and young adults have been treated for a panoply of illnesses over the past 15 years.

Ukrainian Health Minister Nykola Efremovish Polischuk was in Cuba recently to commemorate the anniversary. In remarks delivered at a ceremony in Havana’s Teatro Nacional, he pointed out that the island nation is one of the few countries to have extended aid to Chernobyl’s victims. The ongoing and sustainable medical nature of this aid is what distinguishes the Cuban program and has led to broadened bilateral relations over the past 15 years.

The Explosion

On April 26, 1986, the central reactor at the nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded and caught fire, killing dozens and inciting panic as plumes of radioactive smoke spread outward; the toxic fallout eventually killed thousands. Children were among the first to be evacuated in a massive exodus that saw 150,000 people abandoning their homes and workplaces; everything for a 30-km radius from the reactor was left behind in the evacuation, creating an instant ghost town.

Aid was swiftly dispatched in the disaster’s aftermath and many orphaned children found safety with adoptive parents in Spain, Italy, France and Germany; recreational programs and group vacations for affected children were also offered by various countries including Italy, Israel and Spain. But after a few years, the disastrous event in Chernobyl was eclipsed by other catastrophes, even though thousands were still - or becoming - sick.

Cuba Offers Medical Treatment

Mounting evidence about the nature and scope of the radioactive fallout led the Cuban government to establish its “Chernobyl Children” program at the Tarará Pediatric Hospital in 1990. The idea was to provide free, comprehensive medical care to the most severely affected children aged 5-15 years from the region. From the first group of 139 severely ill children who arrived in Cuba on March 29, 1990 to the nearly 800 patients - both children and adults - treated in 2004, that idea has blossomed into a concrete reality helping people of many nations get well in the wake of disasters.

The majority of the first young patients arriving from Chernobyl suffered from gastrointestinal, immunological and hematological illnesses. Endocrine problems, particularly thyroid cancer and hyperplasia, were the most common. In the earliest stages of the Tarará project, Cuban doctors and specialists treated 289 patients with leukemia and performed six bone marrow and two kidney transplants. Ukrainian officials estimate the Cuban government has spent some US$300 million to treat these thousands of children – far and away more than any other country has offered the victims of Chernobyl.

In an exclusive interview with MEDICC Review, Dr. Julio Medina, Director of the Tarará Pediatric Hospital said “the first cases we saw had thyroid-related illnesses – these were the first effects of the accident. Today, we consider posttraumatic stress disorder the second effect of the accident.” Genetic malformations - especially in the kidneys - resulting from radioactive exposure, and skin disorders like vitiligo, are other long-term effects being treated at Tarará.

Like all patients in the Cuban public health system, the Chernobyl kids are treated using an integrative approach that includes a wide array of specialists - from pediatricians and oncologists, to psychologists and dentists. They also benefit from the latest advances in Cuban biotechnology, receiving hepatitis B and other vaccinations and recombinant interferon therapy.

Dr. Medina added that though officials “peg the number of victims at 100,000, it is very difficult to say…because the area is still contaminated.” Since much of that contamination is with Cesium 137, (with a half life of between 20 and 50 years), coupled with the fact that some evacuees are repopulating Chernobyl after 19 years away from home, it’s likely the doctors at Tarará will continue to treat a fair number of comely children, their flaxen hair gone due to alopecia.

From Disaster to Development

Nineteen years later, Cuba continues to treat children from Chernobyl.

Cooperation between the governments of Cuba and the Ukraine during the 15 years of the Chernobyl Children’s program has fostered a unique relationship between the two public health systems. In 1998, the governments signed an accord that brought the integrative Tarará treatment model to the Ukraine, with a Cuban medical team including an endocrinologist, pediatrician, hematologist and psychologist, arriving in the Crimea.

The working partnership on the Chernobyl project could serve as a model for other countries. In 2003, the Ukrainian Parliament took the Chernobyl Children project under consideration and voted to make it an official government program, earmarking funds for its future development.

As for the Tarará facility, it has branched out from its roots as a hospital for the victims of Chernobyl and been transformed into an international post-disaster medical center, treating children from all over the world. Earthquake victims from Armenia, Brazilian children suffering from Cesium 137 poisoning and traumatized families evacuated from Montserrat when the volcano on that island rendered it almost entirely uninhabitable, all have benefited from the expertise and solidarity of the Tarará Pediatric Hospital.