What better description of Apitherapy could there be than this one by Prof Theodore Cherbuliez MD of the Commission of Apitherapy of Apimondia."Apitherapy offers to people, and particularly people in developing countries, a concept of scientific medicine of an ecological nature. The medical approach that it proposes is based on the use of local resources, thus allowing powerful treatments whilst remaining financially accessible to those with low income.

In addition to the specific techniques using bee venom and honey for treatment, apitherapy gives very broad pharmacopoeia touching a large number of specific targets, based in particular on composed products, association between honey and essential oils or honey plus propolis or even honey plus propolis, royal jelly and bee pollen for example.

Its approach is as much preventative as curative. It offers effective treatments which are well known, particularly in Cuba whose research into the medicinal attributes of bee hive products surpasses any other country. Apitherapy recommends prevention, which encourages the maintenance of a state of good health in harmony with nature. The bee keeping products and the plants of a medicinal nature are produced on the spot.

The equipment required to treat the bee harvest and to elaborate the api-pharmacopoea are easy to handle. All the production line can be managed by local staff and the salaries paid in local currencies. The medical and nursing staff have to undergo training in order to be able to implement api-pharmacopoeia. The performance and the simplicity of the implementation of these treatments open doors to both hospitals and dispensaries.

A country that puts in practice a project in apitherapy will acquire a certain medicinal independence whilst relying more on its own natural resources in the fields of apiculture, forestry and medicinal plants. It will contribute to the development of new sectors of activity with added value based on a type of medicine which respects man as well as the ecological balance of his environment.

Such a project can be extended to the veterinary green medicine, in particular for livestock farming. It is a public health solution for numerous underdeveloped countries".

In 1997 the Commission of Apitherapy went for the first time to Cuba, under the invitation of one of its Members, Mr Adolfo Perez Pineiro, Director of the Centre of Apiarian Research of Havana. A first course in February 1998 introduced the therapy concept to about twenty doctors and the representatives of the Ministries of Health and Agriculture. The meeting laid the foundation of a collaboration which still exists.

The Commission gave a second course in February 1999, invited by the teaching hospital Calixto Garcia of Havana, which captured the attention of more than 70 doctors and nursing staff. Other trips in 1999 made it possible to continue training, to evaluate the resources and the needs of the country, as well to strengthen the contacts with the leading authorities. The Cuban people realised that they can use their own resources and become more independent in a medicinal context.

Cuba has a rich and diversified vegetal resources with an oganised structure in agriculture, forestry and bee-keeping. There are real needs in the public health sector as the majority of medicines are imported and are paid for in foreign exchange. The state of Cuba has trained a lot of highly competent people people at managerial level and has orientated its policies to meet the needs of the community. Alas, they lack the means to meet these needs.

Under the impulse of the Commission, the medical authorities of the country, and in particular the Finlay Institute of Havana (the very one which has discovered one of the three vaccines know to date against meninigitis) has introduced the use of arohoneys and propohoneys in hospitals. Three antibacterial arohoneys, and one healing propohoney have been made from local bee-keeping products. The Commission has made available the neccessary essential oils after having studied beforehand the possibility of producing them at a later date on the spot.

Treatments have been carried out in 5 hospitals making it possible to look after a total of 3 - 4,000 patients, in accordance with the scientific, health and administrative imperatives of the country, which has granted the neccessary authorisations and signed with the Commission a protocol designating this project as being of national interest.

In February-March 2000, the members and the experts of the Commission gave a third course which lasted a whole week, leading to a diploma, and attended by 250 doctors and nurses coming from the four corners of the island. It enabled the application of the previously described treatments. A protocol was signed with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture to develop an overall project of green medicine and apitherapy.

At the beginning of 2001 the results obtained in one year by this application exceeded all hopes. More than 500 patients affected by pneumonia, broncho-pneumonia and other bacterial infections of the respiratory system have been treated with convincing results (see presentations of arohoneys in Cuba). The cure was in every way more rapid through arohoneys, which presented none of the side effects often met with chemical antibiotics.

The overall project, in search of financing, continues in perfect co-operation with the governmental and medical authorities of the country.