It is called Nimesulide and it began to make its way after the relaxation of the entry of medicines into the country, implemented to alleviate the depression of the Cuban pharmaceutical industry, with a production of just over half of the basic list of medicines.

From there to the beginning of buying to "lower fevers" in the midst of the commotion of COVID-19, colds and even dengue, not much happened.

“The people who are selling it —explains pediatrician Arisney Jiménez Herrera— promote it as Dipyrone, Metamizole or Duralgina, and parents, out of ignorance, buy it and give it to children to lower fever; especially now that there is an increase in diseases that cause high fever such as arboviruses, mouth-hand-foot syndrome, herpangina and acute diarrheal diseases due to rotavirus that also cause fever.

Having a child with a fever at home makes anyone desperate, and Nimesulide has reached out in these cases, without knowing the dangers that specialists from the Roberto Rodríguez Hospital Pediatric Service have been warning for days.

A quick search, which could be done by any buyer of the drug outside of Cuba, or whoever was going to consume it here, alarms just by reading the headlines.

It was withdrawn from the market in Venezuela, Colombia, Spain, Finland, and Mexico... The National Center for Documentation and Information on Medicines of Peru warns: “Serious hepatotoxicity associated with the use of nimesulide. Sufficient evidence to recommend its withdrawal from the Latin American market”. In 2019, the Mexican government asked its doctors to stop prescribing it, a determination that pediatricians have also made.

“In less than 15 days we have had three pediatric patients with anaphylactic reactions after taking this medication; reactions that can threaten his life”, Arisney commented. It produces more than liver disorders.

By the way, doctors suggest consulting before taking any medicine not manufactured in Cuba, since the formulation, indications or dose may be different, even though the names are the usual ones. There is even the possibility that part of the drugs that arrive in the country from abroad are part of the developed drug counterfeiting industry in the region or the world, so it is worth being doubly alert.