Guantanamo.- Miguel Díaz Canel Bermúdez, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the Republic, awarded the Carlos J. Finlay Barre 2024 Order to the PhD. Anselma Betancourt Pulsán, Heroine of Labor of the Republic of Cuba and director of the Provincial Council of Scientific Societies of the sector in Guantanamo.
The Cuban government’s highest distinction to nationals and foreigners for their contributions to the development of science for the benefit of mankind was awarded in a ceremony held in the Aula Magna of the local University of Medical Sciences of Guantanamo (UCMGT, in Spanish abbreviation)
Nael Preval Campello, Director General of Health in the eastern territory, and Yanet del Carmen Pérez Ferreiro, rector of the UCMGT, congratulated the Honorary President of the Chair of Drug Addiction Prevention at the University, who said that receiving the aforementioned distinction implies, on a personal level, greater work, effort and commitment to the training of professionals and the well-being of the people.
Betancourt Pulsán also holds the category of honorary member of the Cuban Health Society, and the Ana Betancourt and Mariana Grajales orders, awarded by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), as well as the Lázaro Peña Medal, awarded by the secretariat of the Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC), and the Frank País Medal, conferred by the Ministry of Education.
The solemn ceremony at the UCMGT was an opportune moment to honor two professors with the José Tey Medal and 16 with the Distinction for Cuban Education, in recognition of the merits acquired in their respective work careers for 20 years or more.
Carlos Juan Finlay de Barres (1833-1915) was a distinguished Cuban scientist and in 1881 he presented his thesis on the female Aedes Aegypti mosquito as a transmitter of yellow fever and developed an antivector plan to eradicate the disease.
Due to the transcendence of his discovery, in 1975 UNESCO included him among the six most outstanding microbiologists in history and in 1981 awarded for the first time the International Prize that bears his name, in order to recognize advances in Microbiology.
