Cuba's Lament: `We Will All Go Blind' -- Vitamin Shortage Brings Disease, Deepens Misery

HAVANA - After two years of severe food shortages, malnutrition has become so rampant in Cuba the government is setting up special hospital wards to deal with a serious disease linked to vitamin deficiencies.

Although the Cuban government is downplaying the problem, doctors say some 12,000 Cubans have been treated at hospitals and clinics in Havana alone in the past two months for optic neuropathy. The disease, caused primarily by a lack of B vitamins in the diet, can lead to blindness if ignored.

"People here haven't had red meat in two years," said one Havana doctor who works in a hospital. "It's impossible to find vitamins in the market. People are losing weight. The bottom line is this: If there are no vitamins, we will all go blind."

A number of malnourished Cubans also have been hospitalized with beriberi, an illness related to vitamin B1 deficiency that attacks muscles and nerves and can lead to paralysis.

Teams of doctors have moved into nearly every major Havana hospital and set up special units to deal with the epidemic. In at least four hospitals, the government has created special wings solely to treat Cubans suffering from the eye disease.

Last week, the government slowly began distributing free vitamins in Havana neighborhoods. Officials also suggested that Cubans eat the leaves, flowers and seeds of vegetables to supplement their daily vitamin intake.

Along the worn streets and neighborhoods of Havana, there's a sense of panic. Everyone knows someone who has the eye disease. Everyone is convinced they will be next. And everyone sees the outbreak as an ill omen, a symbol of the country's plunge into the havoc of the Third World.

Suddenly, Fidel Castro's treasured health-care system is straining as constant shortages of food and medicine begin to take a deepening toll.

Although the Cuban government has publicly confirmed the epidemic, it says only a few thousand people have been affected and denies reports of widespread malnutrition. At the same time, the government says excessive smoking and drinking - not just malnutrition - is causing the eye disease.

U.S. doctors say smoking and drinking, especially home-brewed liquor - popular by necessity in Havana - worsen any illness and make it more difficult for the body to absorb vitamins. But the underlying problem goes way beyond booze and tobacco, they say.

"It's an indication that these people are starving," said Dr. Matthew Kay, a neuro-opthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Insitute in Miami."There can't be 12,000 severe alcoholics."

For two years now, most Cubans have gone almost entirely without meat or dairy products - principal sources of Vitamin B12. Instead, they have had to rely on small portions of black beans, rice and bread. Most adults have received only one egg each in the past four weeks from government-controlled stores.

To make matters worse, a dramatic shortage of B-complex vitamins throughout the island has managed to turn the disease, once common in prisoner-of-war camps, into a full-blown epidemic.

The list of don't-haves on the dinner plate grows longer each day. No pork, rarely any chicken. Those desperate enough for chicken might find it on the black market. But one chicken costs one month's salary. Milk is available primarily for children under the age of seven. No fruit. No vegetables, except lettuce.

Many can only afford what they get from the government: One bread roll a day. Ten ounces of beans a month. And six pounds of rice for three people a month. In the middle of the night, people start lining up for tiny soy burgers and an odd type of pizza - dough topped with sugar.

At one of the best hospitals in Cuba, patients with optic neuropathy are being admitted at an alarming rate. Many more are given vitamins and sent home.

One woman, a patient in her 30s who had been hospitalized for nine days with optic neuropathy, said her eyesight first started failing in January. Things looked a little blurry, especially during the day. She ignored it.

"I just let it go," she said. "I didn't think about it. I really didn't know what it was. At first, it's only slight, a little cloudy. But then it's terrible, especially in the morning."

Soon, she could discern only shapes. Then the pain spread to her arms and legs, a sign of beriberi, U.S. doctors say.

"I could barely even move," she said. "I couldn't sleep at night. When I first got to the hospital, I couldn't even look out at the ocean, my eyes hurt so much."

As soon as she got to the hospital, doctors put her in a special ward and pumped her with vitamins, including vitamin B1 and B12. She also began physical therapy for her arms and legs. Little by little, her muscles and vision get stronger.

"It's so, so painful," she said. "The government has to do something about it."

In a nearby hospital, a Havana doctor said that without the proper food and a steady stream of vitamins the crisis will turn into a plague.

"Our government just doesn't have the pocket money to get out of this crisis," he said. "Soon, we'll be eating plastic."