Cuba will send six teams, each consisting of a doctor, a nurse and an epidemiologist, Ambassador Damian Arteaga said Thursday on Radio Ya.

Cuba had offered medical assistance in early November, soon after the hurricane struck Central America, killing an estimated 10,000 people in the region.

But President Arnoldo Aleman's government accepted only food and medicine, saying it couldn't transport doctors to areas the storm hit. It did accept doctors from other countries.

Cuba was a strong ally of Nicaragua's Sandinista government of the 1980s, which Aleman had opposed and which had imprisoned him.

The rejection of the Cuban doctors was sharply criticized by Nicaraguans, some of whom noted that even the staunchly anti-communist Somoza regime permitted Cuban doctors to help after a 1972 earthquake struck Managua, killing 10,000 people.

Arteaga said the Health Ministry asked Cuba for help Wednesday, after some transportation difficulties were resolved. The teams are expected to arrive today.

Nicaragua is having outbreaks of diarrhea, dengue, cholera and other diseases, many stemming from river contamination.