TENS of thousands of pregnant Cuban women face severe health risks due to the brutal US fuel blockade, authorities in Havana have warned.

The Cuban Ministry of Public Health said on Monday that the fuel blockade was affected more than 32,880 mothers-to-be as well as vital services for newborn babies, children and patients needing urgent care.

Intensification of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba is making it increasingly difficult to buy medicines, expendable materials, medical instruments and spare parts for hospital equipment.

The ministry said the cruel economic war was hurting millions of people.

The lack of fuel has had a direct impact on the care of unborn children, especially in access to obstetric ultrasound to monitor foetal wellbeing and genetic studies that allow timely detection of malformations, the ministry added.

Childhood vaccination schedules are being delayed by the fuel shortage, which also endangers the lives of children with special needs requiring home ventilation, mechanical aspiration and air conditioning.

The limitations imposed by the US sanctions also lead to a scarcity of sanitary transport for urgent and emergency cases. 

There could be severe impacts significantly affecting more than 61,830 infants under one year old who require special attention during the first stage of life.

The blockade also restricts care for medical emergencies, cancer patients and many other medical treatments and the lack of commercial flights further complicates the Cuban health system’s access to medicines and other indispensable resources.

Meanwhile, Cuban artists and intellectuals blasted the US blockade and issued a call for global solidarity.

In a statement to intellectuals and artists worldwide, the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) called for mobilisation in defence of the socialist island’s national sovereignty and against the US economic blockade.

The message, reproduced in tomorrow’s Morning Star, said the current resistance stemmed from historical and cultural convictions.

It highlighted the outstanding social achievements of the Cuban revolution, including “the elimination of illiteracy, the reduction of infant and maternal mortality and the deployment of doctors and teachers abroad.”

Uneac rejected the notion that the Caribbean island poses a threat to US national security and called on “honest and humanist” men and women to prevent an act of genocide.

Cuban artists reaffirmed that their nation would resist this inhumane aggression, but they also appealed for solidarity to stop a measure that violates international law.