By Rubén G. Abelenda (*)
Inspired by the Cuban Mother of the Nation, the mambisa Mariana Grajales, women health professionals and scientists from the Caribbean island worked tirelessly in the first line of combat against the Covid-19 pandemic, with the trials of five vaccine projects, including Sovereign 02, already in phase III.
Thanks to the development of communications, from this grateful African land, I spoke via WhatsApp with one of those Brave, Dr. Misladys Rodríguez Ortega, First Degree Specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine, Master in Epidemiology, and Professor and Researcher at the famous Institute of Tropical Medicine of the largest of the Antilles, Pedro Kouri (IPK).
Modest and consecrated like the vast majority of our “Marianas” of these times, Misladys is part of a multidisciplinary feminine group in charge of the clinical tests of Soberana 02 in La Lisa, a Havana municipality , where my two daughters have received the doses of the recognized drug.
She told us that today Soberana 02 is a candidate who has shown very promising results, so -she said- “I feel very proud to be part of this team headed by the Principal Investigator of the clinical trial Dr. in Sciences María Eugenia Toledo Romaní, also IPK epidemiologist ”.
She then told her that last October one of her 13-year-old twins’ nieces asked her if she (her aunt) would use the vaccine product, she was worried if something could happen to her.
Misladys replied: «Nothing will happen to me and I hope I was the first volunteer because I trust Cuban scientists, and many valuable women who are dedicated to achieve a medicine to save lives inside and outside our country.»
Likewise, she agreed to her little niece that she “would put her arm as the first, following the example of the famous Cuban researcher Carlos J. Finlay, discoverer of the agent that transmits Yellow Fever and who was the first to get the vaccine against that disease ”.
Our charming interlocutor from a distance has three children, one 26, another 17, and a small one of 5, that she says «is a grandson-son who has stolen her heart.»
Misladys is an internationalist, like thousands of Cuban female doctors. She took part in a medical mission in Guatemala, between 1999 and 2002, as well as in sister Venezuela, between 2003 and 2007, and of course she is an ambassador of the benefits of the always caring Caribbean island and of her health system.
«It is part of our profession to give ourselves at all times and leave the personal matters behind, believe me I do not call it a sacrifice because we have rooted it since we decided to be doctors,» she wrote me in one of her emotional messages.
This coming March 8th, International Women’s Day, we Cubans should feel more proud than ever of our “Marianas” of today, who like Misladys and the team of which she is part, are showing the world what they are capable of doing, in the midst of the tightening blockade and the aggressions of the United States, to save humanity. This is how Fidel taught us.
Many congratulations to all and eternal gratitude from this African nation, where other Brave of the largest of the Antilles also heal and defeat death.
(*) Journalist and Ambassador of Cuba in the Gambia
"An Island on a Continent" 