Cuban ambassador Ramon Hernandez Vazquez and other diplomatic officials welcomed the group at the Nicolau Lobato international airport.

The Cuban health professionals will join their colleagues who are already serving in Timor Leste to complete the 237-member brigade.

Cubas health cooperation with the country began in April 2004 guaranteeing medical attention in all 65 sub-districts in this mountainous territory of nearly 1 million inhabitants.

Thanks to the Cuban collaboration, the infant mortality rate in the country has been dropped by a 50 percent in the places where the Cuban doctors have been working, while 2,660 lives have been saved in the same period.

In addition, nearly 150 young Timorese people are being trained to become doctors by Cuban professors.

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