News · Health
An HIV patient in Cienfuegos says his medical food ration was withdrawn and he gathers firewood to cook
Yoel Morales, diagnosed with HIV in 2005 and living in Cienfuegos, tells Infobae that the rationed medical diets for patients like him have vanished from state stores and that he lives in a makeshift house with no title deed.
Yoel Morales, diagnosed with HIV in 2005 and living in the province of Cienfuegos, has spent 47 years in a makeshift home with no title deeds that would let him apply to official bodies for repairs, according to his testimony to Infobae. He says the room where he sleeps is kept dry by roofing sheets he bought with his own money a decade ago and that, without legal standing, he cannot request building materials from the Housing Directorate or the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution.
His days pass between informal earnings and limits on what he can eat. "Sometimes I don't eat a main dish; I eat rice, whatever I can get," he says, in remarks translated by Yamacoa. He explains that the lack of electricity and the price of charcoal force him to gather firewood and cook on an improvised stove.
To that he adds the stigma. Morales says that although he works as a health promoter, he has been turned away when seeking cleaning work in private homes, and that outside the specialist staff of his usual ward he meets discriminatory attitudes: "They treat you as if you had the bubonic plague. I don't know where medical ethics in Cuba have gone."
The core of his complaint is the end of rationed medical diets. People with a diagnosis historically received a supplementary basket of powdered milk, eggs, beef, cured meats and cereals to offset the physical toll of the infection. "They took it away because they say there was no budget to pay for it for all the patients," Morales says. Yamacoa has not been able to confirm that an official measure abolishing those diets exists.
Infobae adds that independent groups and activists report constant shortages of vitamin supplements and of reagents to measure viral load and CD4 counts, along with interruptions in antiretroviral supplies at hospital pharmacies, while the authorities say social coverage is being maintained. According to Public Health Ministry (Minsap) records cited by the outlet, Cuba counted 35,373 people living with HIV in 2025, a prevalence of 0.4% of the population against a Latin American average of 0.7%.
Sources: Infobae
Data updated: 2026-11-01T16:15:00.000Z