To the Costa Rica Popular Council, in the municipality of El Salvador, some 30 kilometres distant from the city of Guantánamo, arrived today Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of the National Defence Council, on his visit to the most eastern province to appreciate in situ the damages caused by Hurricane Melissa, and above all the efforts being made to repair and solve those affects.

Accompanied by Manuel Marrero Cruz, member of the Political Bureau of the Party and Prime Minister of the Republic, the heads of several ministries, Yoel Pérez García and Alis Azahares Torreblanca, president and vice-president of the Provincial Defence Council respectively, Díaz-Canel was received at the Manuel Regojo Vera polyclinic, where workers of the centre and the highest authorities of the El Salvador Defence Council awaited him.

Costa Rica, scene of the uprising of 30th November 1956 in the then Ermita sugar mill, led by the deceased revolutionary combatant Julio Camacho Aguilera, subsequently Commander of the Rebel Army, with a population of almost six thousand inhabitants, was among the Popular Councils most affected by the passage of Hurricane Melissa.

Doctor Tanya Pozo Cardona, specialist in Comprehensive General Medicine and director of the polyclinic, explained that the institution suffered affects to the waterproofing of the roof covering due to the meteor and damages to some pipes, which did not prevent the continuity in the provision of services, which include all those of primary care, guaranteed by its 269 workers.

Díaz-Canel showed interest in the epidemiological situation of the community, about which he learned that there is a greater circulation of dengue, and to a lesser extent chikungunya.
Alexis Matos Lores, president of the El Salvador Municipal Defence Council, explained that the 11 Popular Councils, 119 state institutions and two thousand 983 homes were affected by Melissa, and sectors such as Education, with 36 percent recovery; Commerce and agriculture, an economic pillar of the territory, with 70 thousand cans of coffee damaged, were more impacted.

Communications and the electrical sector were also severely affected, the latter at 80 percent recovery, he signified that resources such as fibrocement roof tiles are already being sold to the population and one thousand 600 food modules and an equal quantity of hygiene modules were distributed in five Popular Councils, solidarily delivered by the Republic of Colombia.