Health, vaccinations and medical care in Cuba

Bring your own pharmacy

• There are severe shortages of basic medicines in Cuba. Many things available at home are simply not obtainable.
• Bring everything you might need and more than you think: your prescriptions, painkillers, rehydration salts, antihistamines, antiseptic, plasters, anti-diarrhoeals, insect repellent.
• Facilities that treat foreigners stock basic supplies, but that is not the same as a pharmacy.
• If you have a condition, bring a letter from your doctor setting out the treatment and dosage. The FCDO advises this specifically.
• Leftover medicines are a genuinely welcome gift to a casa host or a clinic when you leave.

Paying for treatment

• All treatment requires payment in advance, in foreign currency. You or your insurer settle the bill before care is given.
• Your card will not work - see the money section. Keep an emergency cash reserve separate from your spending money for exactly this.
• Havana's facilities are better than everywhere else in Cuba, which matters if something serious happens in the provinces.
• Take insurance covering treatment and evacuation, and carry the policy number offline.

The mosquitoes

• Cuba has had an arbovirus epidemic with Dengue, Oropouche and Chikungunya circulating, and the CDC has issued enhanced precaution notices.
• This is the current health risk, not a background one.
• Repellent day and night, long sleeves in the evening, and a net or a fan where there is no screen.
• Bring the repellent with you. It is one of the things that is short here.

Water

• Drink bottled or boiled water. Supply is intermittent and treatment is not guaranteed.

Numbers

• 104 for an ambulance. Not 911 and not 112.