How Cuba is leading the international fight against Ebola
Que viva Cuba! 
Good on Kerry for recognizing that Cuba stepped up to such a huge degree, see we share that quality with our neighbors, maybe we can be friends? 
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-17/how-cuba-leading-international-fight-against-ebola
The US has long had frosty relations with Cuba, and American officials rarely speak fondly of the small island nation. So it was a special moment on Friday when US Secretary of State John Kerry commended Cuba’s efforts in the battle against Ebola.
“Cuba, a country of just 11 million people, has sent 165 health professionals — and it plans to send nearly 300 more," Kerry told a group of foreign diplomats in Washington. “There is no country that is exempt from being able to do something to be able to contribute to this effort and help make a difference.”
Cuba has been lauded around the world for the strong medical force it dispatched to West Africa.
“As far as I know, and as far as the World Health Organization has said, [the Cuban medical team] is the single largest contingent from any country [in West Africa],” says journalist Gail Reed. “They are hands-on patient care people. They’re not hanging back and looking at overall plans — they’re actually at patients’ bedsides.”
Reed is an American journalist based in Cuba and the founder of a US non-profit named Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba. She says these Cuban medical professionals, mostly doctors and nurses, are serving in West Africa of their own volition.
“They’re all volunteers, there’s no doubt about it,” Reed says. “They’ve been on these kinds of missions before. And in fact, of the many thousands of volunteers that have actually signed up, the Cuban Health Ministry has only chosen the most experienced with both disaster and epidemic experience.”
Reed notes that there’s a cultural history of medical professionals “giving back” in Cuba. “Their first disaster response team left for Chile after an earthquake in 1960, when Cuba only had 3,000 doctors,” she points out. “Now it has over 80,000. But all through the years, ‘giving back’ has been part of the culture. Right now, for example, there are 50,000 Cuban health professionals in 66 different countries."
= new reply since forum marked as read
came here in the late eighties (early nineties?)... was not a fan of Castro or the State of Cuba. Hated the fact that Doctors are always sent overseas. Claimed that there were never enough Doctors for Cubans in Cuba. Also claimed that the Doctors were only sent out after the receiving country agreed to pay the State of Cuba a wage for each worker (not to the Doctors, mind). A bitter guy. I don't know him any more and i'm not sure how much of what he said, if any, is true. I'm pretty sure he was a Republican.
and Rs would be in big trouble. 
They are not holding up their hands to volunteer for sure 
- We send soldiers to fight viruses with democracy and bombs. Who knew you could use health professionals?!