The medicinal preparations based on bee honey could replace up to 70 percent of the conventional medicine in Cuba, where bee-keeping has been the target of development for 20 years. Compounds with honey and other bee products, mixed with essential oils have long been used throughout this Caribbean island to treat such things as parasites, skin infections and respiratory illnesses.

“Cuban honey is high quality and is increasingly close to international requirements,” said Belgian scientist Roch Domerago, vice-president of Apimondia, an international apiculture organization, which has already joined forces with the United Nations Development Program to implement bee product therapy in Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

According to Domerago, Cuba leads the way among Latin American countries in this alternative medicine, followed by Brazil and Argentina.