Cuba

The ongoing US actions are ‘suffocating the social fabric of Cuban society’, according to the expert.

The United States must lift unilateral sanctions imposed on Cuba as they are “causing significant effects across all aspects of life” more than six decades after they were imposed during the early part of Fidel Castro’s leadership, according to a senior United Nations expert.

The “extensive regime of economic, trade and financial restrictions” against the island nation marks the longest-running unilateral sanctions policy in US history, said Alena Douhan, special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights.

Only the US Congress can lift the Cold War-era embargo on communist-run Cuba, whose government has maintained that the country “will not surrender” to Washington’s “policy of collective punishment”.

“As a result, generations of Cubans have lived under unilateral coercive measures, which has shaped the country’s economic and social landscape,” Douhan said in a statement released on Friday.

The UN official cited reports that Washington’s imposed measures have progressively tightened since 2018, with further sanctions imposed on the already existing ones and a significant intensification in 2021 following Cuba’s re-designation as a so-called “state sponsor of terrorism”.

Other countries and international companies also over-comply with the embargoes in an effort to steer clear of being targeted with secondary sanctions, which Douhan said affects the government and the people’s ability for long-term planning, “suffocating the social fabric of Cuban society”.

US governments have for decades ignored international calls to remove the sanctions on Cuba, including the overwhelming UN General Assembly vote at the end of October that showed global support for an end to the embargo for a 33rd year.

According to the UN rapporteur, there are shortages of food, medicine, electricity, water, essential machinery and spare parts in Cuba, while a growing emigration of skilled workers, including medical staff, engineers and teachers, is further straining the country.

The accumulative effect has “severe consequences for the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, food, health and development”, Douhan said.

Cuba has suffered a series of electricity blackouts, grid collapses that have rocked the island of 10 million over the past year.

Even when the US issues very limited licences and exemptions, the UN expert said investors remain wary of committing to long-term projects since there could be a policy shift in Washington.

“I urge all states to adhere to international law principles and norms and ensure that humanitarian concerns are fully respected, grounded in principles of mutual respect, solidarity, cooperation and multilateralism,” she said.

Douhan will present a thorough report to the UN Human Rights Council on the effect of the US sanctions in September 2026, following meetings with government officials, international agencies, church representatives, members of academia, medical personnel and the private sector.

Cuba’s top epidemiologist warned nearly a third of the population has been impacted and swaths of workforce sickened.

Cuba is battling a wave of mosquito-borne illnesses, with the country’s top epidemiologist warning that nearly one-third of the population has been impacted, with large numbers of workers taken ill.

On Thursday, fumigators armed with fogging machines probed alleys and crowded buildings in parts of the capital Havana, among the hardest hit by mosquito-borne viruses including dengue and chikungunya, authorities said.

It comes after Francisco Duran, the national director of epidemiology at the Cuban Ministry of Public Health, described the situation in the Caribbean island nation as “acute”.

“We are working intensely, as we did with COVID-19,” Duran said, referring to ongoing research projects to find medications and vaccines to help tame the virus’s impacts.

Dengue fever has long plagued Cuba, but has grown worse as the government’s ability to fumigate, clean roadside rubbish and patch leaky pipes has been hampered by an ongoing economic crisis.

The once-rare chikungunya virus – which causes severe headache, rashes and joint pain which can linger months after infection, causing long-term disability – has also spread quickly in recent months.

Chikungunya, which is spread primarily by the Aedes mosquito species that also carries dengue and Zika, has no specific treatment.

Duran said Cuban health authorities are conducting two clinical trials to test the efficacy of Jusviza, an injectable drug used to control hyperinflammation, in treating chikungunya.

He continued that another trial is under way to evaluate rectal ozone therapy as a treatment for patients with joint pain following chikungunya’s acute phase. This form of treatment involves administering ozone gas through the rectum.

Outbreaks of chikungunya have infected almost 340,000 people globally so far in 2025, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), resulting in 145 deaths in at least 16 countries. In July, the World Health Organization issued an urgent call for action to prevent another epidemic of the virus.

Cuba’s healthcare system, once among the best in Latin America, has suffered under a decades-long economic embargo orchestrated by the United States, seeking to pressure Havana’s nominally communist government into making political and economic reforms.

Citizens in the impoverished island nation routinely suffer from severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine, while the poorest are often unable to purchase insect repellent.

The issue is exacerbated by frequent power outages, which leave Cubans with little choice but to open their windows and doors to ease the heat, inviting mosquitoes in and facilitating the spread of the disease.

“The blockade is a policy of collective punishment,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said in late October, as the United Nations General Assembly again overwhelmingly called for an end to Washington’s embargo for a 33rd year.

“It flagrantly, massively and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans. It makes no distinction between social sectors or economic actors,” he said.