A center to assist more than 2,000 HIV/AIDS patients from six eastern Cuban provinces was inaugurated at the Juan Bruno Zayas hospital in Santiago de Cuba.

The center has high-technology equipments for immunology and virology analysis, surgical treatment, and endoscopic procedures. It also provides health counseling for patients and their relatives.

The new center will track the patients from the six eastern Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba. Until now, these patients had to go to Havana for treatment.

The first case of AIDS in Cuba was detected in 1986 and 10,454 HIV carriers had been reported till November 2008, of whom 3,910 had evolved into AIDS.

(XinhuaNet)