Havana, Cuba.- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said today that doctors on the island can never be defamed because of their well-known humanistic work in different parts of the world.

The head of state responded to an article published on March 17 by journalist Nicholas Casey in the New York Times, which states that Cuban physicians present in Venezuela were allegedly used to pressure patients in the vote in favor of President Nicolás Maduro in the elections of May 20 last.

‘Cuban doctors can never be defamed. Their extraordinary human work in lands that the empire calls’ dark corners of the world ‘, belie the NYT and its reporter Casey’, he said in his Twitter account, which has 109 thousand followers.

According to Díaz-Canel, it is a crime to feed the war of hatred that the Republican senator from Florida Marco Rubio is waging against Cuba and Venezuela.

Rubio has been one of the most active US politicians in the crusade that Washington leads to try to impose a change of regime in the South American country.

The article in The New York Times generated in the last hours a strong rejection in the largest of the Antilles, known in the world for its solidarity, in particular that of its health professionals.

The Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal, stressed that no true Cuban doctor denies the service and much less risks the life of a patient to achieve political ends.

Portal recalled that for 55 years, the island has provided health cooperation in more than 120 countries, where some 400,000 health workers have been.