Dominican President and Haitian Prime Minister meet to join forces against cholera

Dominican President and Haitian Prime Minister meet to join forces against cholera
Santo Domingo, 12/08/2010

Dominican President Leonel Fernandez received Haiti’s Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, in his office at the National Palace.  They agreed to a meeting, to take place next Tuesday in the Dominican Republic, of the Dominican-Haitian Joint Commission, which will be led by the leaders of the two nations to join efforts on the fight against cholera.

Bellerive said that given the efforts of the Dominican authorities to control the incidence of cholera within its territory, Haiti wishes to join these efforts and to further assess matters related to the disease.

The details of his meeting with President Fernandez were offered by Bellerive himself, together with the Minister of Health of the Dominican Republic, Bautista Rojas Gomez, at a press conference held at the National Palace, where he informed through the Division of Information, Press and Publicity of the Presidency that next week’s meeting will be held in the Dominican Republic.

Bellerive said that given the efforts of the Dominican authorities to control the incidence of cholera within its territory, Haiti wishes to join these efforts and to further assess matters related to the disease. In this regard, he said that the health ministers of the two nations will work together to find out how they can join efforts to protect their populations.

“The only thing that matters to us, what we want the most, is to protect our neighbors. The disease was imported into Haiti, and now we do not want to re-export it to other countries,” said Bellerive, who added that at the border, as well as in other areas on the Haitian side, cholera treatment centers are being set up, similar to what the Dominican authorities have also done.

He also maintained that so far the Haitian government has taken all possible measures to reduce the incidence of the disease in other countries.

Bellerive said that they also addressed other bilateral issues, “but the underlying theme of the meeting is how to join our efforts to combat cholera.”

Additionally, he reported that in Haiti around 1.600 people have died and there have been some 38.800 cases of infections, but he said that the number of deaths is lowering in that country.

Meanwhile, Bautista Rojas Gomez informed that there are 22 registered cases in the Dominican Republic, after two new infected people were discovered in Elías Piñas, a 53-year old Dominican farmer, and a 23-year old Haitian, who have been admitted at the Bánica hospital and are in stable condition.

The meeting with President Fernandez was also attended by some members of the Dominican government: Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gomez, the Executive Branch’s Legal Consultant, Abel Rodriguez del Orbe, the Dominican Ambassador in Haiti, Rubén Silié, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel Teal.

The Haitian Authorities that were present were: the Health Minister, Alex Larsen, and the Haitian Ambassador in the Dominican Republic, Fritz Cinéas, among others.