HAVANA, Cuba.- Cuba will graduate the largest number of medical doctors ever when 11 000 new professionals receive their diplomas this month.

According to Granma newspaper, the total of graduates includes 5 315 Cubans and 5 694 professionals from 59 countries of the world. The graduation ceremonies are scheduled to take place in Eastern Guantanamo and Havana provinces, on July 18, and in Ciego de Avila and Artemisa provinces, July 24.

The countries with the largest number of doctors formed in Cuba are Bolivia (over 1400), Peru (453), Nicaragua (429), Ecuador (308), Colombia (175) and Guatemala (170). The number of new Cuban doctors nearly doubles the figure existing on the island before the 1959 Revolution triumph.

However, the total figure of Cuban and foreign health professionals, including the new medical doctors, who will graduate this school year reaches 32 171 and this adds the specialties of dentistry, psychology, nursing and health technologies, according to information made available by the Cuban Health Ministry’s Department of Higher Medical Courses.

Meanwhile, Cuban professors are training over 29 000 students in medicine, nursing and health technologies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Angola, Tanzania, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia and East Timor, Granma newspaper reported.

Professor Mariheta Cutino, National Director of the Higher Medical Courses Department stressed the high academic level of the over 43 000 professors who are in charge of making the integral training of the new health specialists possible.

Cuba has medical universities in all its provinces, except for the western territories of Mayabeque, Artemisa and the Isle of Youth, where there are independent faculties.

Nearly 109 000 medical doctors graduated in Cuba since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 up to 2010.