HAVANA, Cuba.- The first 500 Ecuadoran diabetic patients with foot ulcers will be treated with a new Cuban medication called Heberprot-P, only of its type in the world capable of curing the ailment that otherwise could imply amputation.

The Ecuadoran Health Ministry and the Cuban Heber Biotech Company agreed in Quito the sale of some 9 000 doses of the medication amounting to 3 275 000 dollars, signed by Jorge Rodriguez Cuba´s Ambassador to that South American nation and Jose Maria Borja, Under Secretary of the local Foreign Ministry for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Prensa Latina News Agency reported that after the product was registered in Cuba in 2006, the Heberprot-P medication benefited over 60 000 patients around the world and now it will be applied in Ecuador after concluding the trial stage carried out with doses donated by the island.

During the signing ceremony, Jorge Mayo, representative of Biotech characterized the product as the son of Cuban science which, he said has saved the inferior extremities of thousands of diabetic patients in the world with a 90 percent effectiveness, and has already been presented in 25 countries for its registry and has been patented in 14 nations of the European Union, Asia and Latin America, in addition to the US.

Francisco Vallejo, Under Secretary of Ecuador´s Health Ministry highlighted the importance of broadening its bilateral ties with Cuba and the nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

He believes that the document signed is only one part of what can be achieved in favor of the health of the Ecuadoran people.

The Cuban Heber Biotech company has, in addition to Heberprot-P, other leading products like Interferon and the Pentavalente vaccine that immunizes infants against five diseases with only one dose.