Petition Calls for Nobel Peace Prize to Go to Cuban Medical Teams

At Delmas 33, a camp for displaced Haitians in Port-au-Prince, a woman grimaces as a Cuban doctor administers a vaccination provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) on February 16, 2010. UN Photo/Sophia Paris

By Cindy Domingo and Leni Reeves
Co-chairs, Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance

June 2020

United States organizations and individuals are being asked to join more than 25 European organizations in their call to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Cuba’s medical brigades for their contributions to the worldwide confrontation with COVID-19.

This movement was launched on April 28 by the European organizations Cuba Linda and France Cuba. Acknowledging that the nomination period has passed, the groups cite that the circumstances brought on by the pandemic and Cuba’s extraordinary international efforts in dispatching the Henry Reeves International Medical brigades of doctors, nurses, researchers, and other health professionals calls for an extension of the deadline to nominate.

Code Pink's petition states that as of May 1, 2020, over 1,450 Cuban medical personnel were fighting COVID-19 in 22 countries, including a brigade of 200 medical professionals sent to South Africa. For the first time in Cuba’s history of international healthcare solidarity, Italy requested assistance from Cuba in the fight against the virus. Cuba answered Italy’s call and sent a brigade to northern Italy, the hardest area hit by COVID-19.

If you haven’t read it already, here is our April 2020 eNews article about how Cuba has been sending specially trained medical personnel to other countries since 1963 in the face of natural disasters, disease, and pandemics as part of their international commitment to provide healthcare for the world’s population.  

Please sign the Code Pink petition to acknowledge Cuba’s contributions in the fight against COVID-19.