THE US fuel blockade on Cuba is increasing the risk of the next global pandemic, experts, campaigners and Labour MPs have warned.

World-class vaccine research that produced three Covid vaccines is grinding to a halt as 20-hour blackouts continue to grip the island. 

US President Donald Trump imposed his brutal blockade in late January in a bid to topple its socialist government.

Any country that intervenes faces sanctions. Child mortality — once lower than in the US — has more than doubled with nearly every facet of life in Cuba affected.

Unison demanded more from Labour today as delegates heard invasion fears are mounting following the US humiliation by Iran.

And speaking at its conference in Brighton, Cuban health chief Dr Mitchell Valdes-Sosa warned the US vendetta is putting lives across the world at risk of the next pandemic.

The director of the Cuban Centre for Neuroscience told the Morning Star: “Even for vaccine development we really have to shop around and use all our imagination to bypass the blocks that the US has put in place. 

“Covid really underlined an idea that world connectivity — planes going everywhere, ships — that anything that starts in one country can spill over to the whole world. 

“That is very clear with Covid. The thing is that getting vaccines to under-served countries, countries that don’t have resources is a very important task that is sometimes left aside.

“Cuban vaccines are inexpensive, well made, safe with the latest advances in biotechnology, but US sanctions try to discourage the use of Cuban products.”

Cuba made and sent three Covid vaccines to the poorest parts of the world that couldn’t afford Big Pharma prices during the pandemic.

In 1989, it quickly developed a meningitis B vaccine after an epidemic on the island killed children.

The jab went on to save Brazilian youngsters when the disease broke out there just months later and was then supplied to the World Health Organisation (WHO) for bouts in sub-Saharan Africa when “Big Pharma was not interested,” said Dr Valdes-Sosa.

“So Cuba has a lot to contribute to the world and instead of persecuting Cuban biotechnology, medicine and people, what the US should do is collaborate,” he said.

“It will save not only lives in Cuba, but lives around the world.

“When they force countries that were working with Cuba to take medicines to the poorest areas with medical brigades, to break off collaboration with Cuba they are putting in jeopardy the lives of people in those poorest areas, they don’t care.”

Labour MP Jon Trickett said: “Cuba developed one of the finest health systems in the world. But the crazy man who lives in the White House is deliberately raising the stakes with the blockade as it hits Cuba’s healthcare. 

“It is an act of unjustified and immoral aggression. All progressives should raise their voices and act in solidarity with the people of Cuba.”

Fellow backbencher Richard Burgon MP said: “Donald Trump’s siege on Cuba is not just a threat to the Cuban people — it risks harming the whole world. 

“Cuba has shown that international solidarity saves lives: its doctors and its Covid vaccines, developed on Cuban soil, helped protect millions of people across the globe during the pandemic and saved thousands of lives.”

Communist Party general secretary Alex Gordon warned the illegal and immoral US blockade of Cuba “is a death sentence for millions far beyond Cuba’s shores. 

“The US blockade on Cuba is a war on the peoples of the whole world and a crime against humanity.”

He urged the public to support the Cuba Vive appeal. Unison’s conference heard the appeal has raised more than £480,000 in two years. 

Delegates passed a motion calling on the government to vote against the blockade at the UN and press the US to normalise its Cuba relations and end its sanctions.

A Momentum spokesperson said: “The brutal US fuel blockade is strangling Cuba’s economy and crippling its healthcare system.

“It’s up to Labour MPs, trade unionists and activists to continue to speak up and demand an immediate end to this collective punishment, ensuring Cuba’s doctors have access to basic resources and world-class research to save lives.”

The WHO added Disease X — the placeholder name given to the next pandemic — to its research and development priority list in 2018.

It urged the global health community to improve co-ordination, establishing global agreements and research protocols so countries can respond within 100 days of identifying a new pathogen.