The Cuban woman who was sick for seven days and blames her neighborhood's streets: garbage, sewage, and a city that "is dying"

The woman posted a photo of a dump in Zamora and described waste, flies, scavenger birds, bad odors, and overflowing sewage near her home, in that area of Havana. (Image taken from CiberCuba) Zea Gisselle, a resident of Marianao, denounced that garbage dumps and overflowing sewage have turned areas of Havana into hotspots of unsanitary conditions, while she was suffering from a bout of fever, chills, and diarrhea that she associates with the environmental deterioration of her neighborhood. The woman posted on Facebook a photograph of a dump near her home, in the Zamora neighborhood, and described streets covered in waste, green flies, birds of prey, and a smell that "seeps into the lungs" and remains embedded in clothing and skin. Her testimony was published by CiberCuba. For seven days, Gisselle suffered gastrointestinal and fever symptoms. She clarified that she drinks boiled and filtered water and that she cannot identify any lapses in her personal hygiene, so she linked her illness to the contamination she perceives in her surroundings. "The only explanation I can find is that my body is starting to react to all the filth that surrounds us," she wrote. She also pointed to the putrid odors and the sewage that, according to her account, floods parts of the city. The Cuban capital generates up to thirty thousand cubic meters of waste daily, and most of it ends up on public streets. Only forty-four collection trucks are currently operational. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo Havana generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of garbage per day, and more than 20,000 cubic meters could go uncollected each day. In early 2026, only 44 of the 106 trucks assigned to collection in the capital were operating, affected by diesel shortages and mechanical breakdowns. The accumulation of waste prompted a sanitation drive called by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, with more than 450 work crews. The official also announced a plan of measures to alleviate the situation, although the piles of garbage continued to grow in the streets. Gisselle maintained that the deterioration is not limited to one corner or to the Marianao municipality. "Walking through all of Cuba right now is feeling disgust," she said, before asserting that the country "is dying" from the sanitary conditions. The complainant also held the State responsible for the situation. "The State knows all the horror it is subjecting us to, and it does nothing, absolutely nothing to save us," she wrote in her post. The comments she received broadened the geographic scope of the complaint. Residents of Santiago de Cuba, Cojímar, and El Vedado described similar scenarios, while a neighbor from Zamora said she has stopped calling her neighborhood by that name: "Now I call it the underworld." Havana generates between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters of waste per day, and more than 20,000 cubic meters go uncollected each day. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo A health worker recounted that she fell ill twice in one month and described the daily effort to survive in those conditions as exhausting. Another person summed up the extent of the problem with a phrase: "If only it were just Marianao. It's all of Cuba." The uncollected garbage and sewage coincide with a rise in communicable diseases. Cuba had accumulated 11,235 dengue cases in 2026, with data through October 4, a figure equivalent to 9.2 times the average of the previous five years, according to the Global Dengue Observatory. All four serotypes of the virus were circulating simultaneously in the country. The situation adds to the deterioration of sanitary conditions described by residents of various provinces. Cuba's Ministry of Public Health acknowledged an increase in acute diarrheal diseases, hepatitis, and respiratory infections. The United States Embassy in Havana issued a health alert in September due to the increase in gastrointestinal illnesses across the country.