Havana, Cuba: “Science and innovation are fundamental pillars of our government management, in all areas, in all State agencies, in all companies and at all levels: from the community to the Presidency of the Republic?, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, said thisMonday, when offering the inaugural conference of the 13th International Congress University 2022, Granma newspaper published.
The president described Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz as the founder of revolutionary national science and fundamental promoter of the advances that distinguish the nation in education, health and scientific research.
As a close and forceful example, given the incalculable impact it meant for the safeguarding of the Cuban population, the Head of State referred to the emerging response of national science to the combination of negative effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the genocidal opportunism of the US blockade.
He highlighted how, with minimal resources, the country’s scientific and technological community created five vaccine candidates, three of which are already approved as vaccines and have allowed 87.9% of the population of the archipelago to be immunized with a complete schedule.
He also referred to the advances in terms of technological autonomy, as happened with the manufacture of its own pulmonary ventilators, which allowed Cuba to overcome the impediments of the blockade to import parts and equipment.
Based on the lessons learned from the pandemic ? he said ? we will improve our health system and strengthen the medical-pharmaceutical industry, which must be increasingly prepared to respond to the needs of the health system and guarantee reasonable levels of technological autonomy.
The First Secretary of the Party also referred to food sovereignty, on which the country has been working systematically since the first half of 2020, with an insistence on urgent scientific approaches.
He defined as fundamental key the creation of capacities, the training of actors, including territorial governments, and the use of knowledge in municipal management for the deployment of policies at the local level.
After a 2021 in which COVID-19, the economic blockade, soft coup attempts and the communicational war against Cuba were combined, the Revolution has once again emerged victorious from these tests, the President stressed.
We move forward knowing that the biggest problems are yet to be solved, and that new ones are yet to appear, but we have learned that science and innovation have answers for everyone, he concluded.
Then, the Cuban President inaugurated an exhibition associated with the International University Congress 2022, a conclave in which 204 foreign delegates from more than 34 countries participate, in person and virtually, as well as ministers, deputy ministers, rectors, Higher Education authorities and other personalities.