Brazil-Cuba spat: Brazil fills in most vacancies left by Cuban doctors

The Cuban doctors in Brazil begin to head home to a diplomatic spat between Havana and the South American country's right-president-elect, Brazil's health ministry said nearly 84 per cent of the resulting vacancies had already been filled.

The first of thousands of Cuban doctors left Brazil on Thursday after the criticism by incoming President Jair Bolsonaro prompted Cuba's government to sever a cooperation agreement, leaving millions of Brazilians without medical care.

The health ministry said to have managed in three days to procure 19,994 Brazilian doctors to take the Cubans' places, often in poor, rural areas.

"Of that total, 13.341 were enlisted, and 7.154 professionals were already allocated to start to start immediately," the statement said.

The health ministry said that a web portal to handle inscriptions, open until Dec. 7, had suffered cyber attacks, which had caused some problems, but the site was now stable.

Bolsonaro has said the Cuban doctors were being used as "slave labour" because Havana took 75 per cent of their salaries. He said the program, which started in 2013, could continue only if they got full pay and were allowed to bring their families.

Bolsonaro, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, was seen last month by Brazilians.

Cuba has a respected health service and generates major export earnings by sending more than 50,000 health workers to over 60 countries. Even though they received only a fraction of their salaries, the money was good for the doctors by Cuban standards.