Fidel Castro: the IPK, its Humanity and Altruistic Spirit

Havana – Cuban scientist, Jorge Perez, remembered here the altruistic personality of recently deceased historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, when he inaugurated the center dedicated to the study of infectious diseases: the Institute Pedro Kouri (IPK).

On that occasion, Fidel Castro made it clear what should be our mission and told us in the opening ceremony: ‘I beg of you not to consider the Institute Pedro Kouri we inaugurate today as solely a Cuban institution, but as an institution of humanity’.

A phrase we have and exhibit with pride and glory, said Perez in statements to Prensa Latina. From that moment on, he considered how we should reach African countries, how we could help them, receiving them to be trained.

The scientist also recalled his meetings with Fidel, who he valued as the soul of the health system in the island. His concepts on how should be the health system in Cuba he had them ever since the assault on the Moncada Garrison in 1953.

Since then he wanted to transform Cuban society, leaving misery behind, the ravages of infectious deceases here in Cuba. With his action, he simply made his ideas come true, he said.

The researcher, who now leads the scientific institution about to turn 80 and with a new venue since 1993 west of this capital, explained that Fidel kept direct cont6acts with the entity, above all in the moments when they assisted the first patients with HIB/Aids.

Many times he would call us asking for all the improvement of conditions that could be made, the diets of those patients we received and the anti-retroviral treatments.

In one occasion, he recalled, I wrote him amid a great economic crisis in the middle of the Special Period, oln the need to treat the children and their parents, which at the time there were only six.

The treatment cost over 20 thousand dollars per patient and that was a fortune for our country. However, in a little over 24 hours I had the answer.

He sent for the medicines, he also asked me to go to the State Council. He explained it was not just to treat one and not the others, we had to find a solution for all and so it was, he recalled.

About his link to the IPK, Perez recalled also the contact of Fidel with personalities of the scientific community visiting the island.

He received Luc Montagnier of France, discoverer of AIDS, with whom he talked about two hours and also when Belgian Peter Piot, former executive director of the UNAIDS, he indicated.

After knowing the news of his decease, we have relived all conversations we had with him with great sorrow. We are humans and we are not eternal, but he will stay forever, he stressed.