Spain to donate $139,000 to combat Haiti cholera outbreak

Madrid, Agency
Spain's AECID international development agency will donate 100,000 euros ($139,000) to create a Spanish fund to combat the possible cholera outbeak in Haiti.

With this money the Pan American Health Organization will mobilize a multidisciplinary team of experts and doctors to "complete the diagnosis, officially confirm the outbreak and deal immediately with the health crisis," AECID said in a communique.

Also going to Haiti, besides specialists in contagious illnesses and epidemiologists, will be water, sanitation and hygiene experts who, according to AECID, will work with the local population to provide safe water and keep the number of cases from growing.

The new fund will also allow specific medicines to be sent urgently and, once the diagnosis is complete, will purchase the antibiotics needed to combat the outbreak.

At least 135 people have died from a cholera outbreak that is affecting the northern and eastern regions of Haiti, the president of the Haitian Medical Association, Claude Surena, told an online Haitian daily.

Haiti Press Network said that there are also 1,500 people ill because of the outbreak, which is affecting the entire province of Artibonite in the north and Mirebalais in the east. Hospitals in both provinces continue to receive those infected with the disease.