U.S. Blockade hinders purchase of diagnostic means for the study of ataxias
- Written by Mailyn Betancourt
- Published in Health
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The blockade imposed by the United States government against Cuba hinders the purchase of medicines and diagnostic means for the treatment of patients suffering from spinocerebellar ataxias and descendants at risk.
The hereditary component that implies the transmission from generation to generation of spinocerebellar ataxias in some Cuban families, a condition that finds in this nation the highest prevalence worldwide, puts a great number of descendants at risk.
Currently there are more than a thousand people affected by this neurodegenerative disease throughout the country, so it is very common for descendants at risk to reach the Center for Research and Rehabilitation of Hereditary Ataxias to know if they can have children without running the danger of having ataxia.
This is possible if a prenatal diagnosis is performed, a specialized study that although it was carried out for some years, now it is not performed because of the restrictions of the U.S. blockade, which prevents the purchase of the necessary means to carry it out.
According to the director of the institution, Jaqueline Medrano Montero, prenatal diagnosis is an important test carried out to couples who are sick or at risk of being carriers of ataxia but with the worsening of the blockade it was impossible to acquire the means, supplies and reagents relevant to the studies, which may result in the birth of children carrying the mutation.
Similarly, it has been very difficult to make the quantitative diagnosis of molecular alterations in the absence of the necessary equipment such as a PSR machine and a DNA sequencer, both essential to quantify the exact size of the mutation.
The US blockade imposed on the island for decades, impacts negatively on countless sectors; that of Public Health is unfortunately one of the most affected.