Chavez: Cuba-Venezuela Achievements for Diabetes

Chavez: Cuba-Venezuela Achievements for Diabetes Caracas, Sep 27. – More than 31,000 Venezuelans have benefited from a health program that, supported by Cuba, has allowed since 2008 to prevent and assist patients with diabetic foot, President Hugo Chavez stated on Tuesday.

During a telephone conversation with the state TV channel Venezolana de Television, Chavez stated that about 14,000 amputations were prevented thanks to the application of Cuban medicine Heberprot-P, a measure generally applied in people suffering from diabetes mellitus.

All this is for free, and as a result of that, some 15,500 patients have been assisted this year, the president said on the occasion of a book about the subject.

Chavez illustrated the achievements of the program implemented in 15 states with testimonies including in the text.

According to the medical literature, about 60 percent of those patients suffer from amputations, a figure reduced less than one percent thanks to medicine Heberprot-P and the work of Venezuelan and Cuban physicians.

Results are incredible; now few people are taken to the operating room, to avoid traumas for the family and the society, the projectâ�Ös national coordinator Doctor Loida Gaffaro De Valera recently told Prensa Latina.

Heberprot-P, developed by the Cuban Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center, is based on recombinant human growth factor, with a peculiarity that it is injected.(Prensa Latina)