The unit will monitor the water quality, environmental factors and health conditions of the population of Cap-Haïtien, with an investment of R$ 700,000

On November 20, the Ministry of Health inaugurated the Cap-Haïtien Public Health Laboratory, in Haiti. The initiative is part of the Brazil-Cuba-Haiti tripartite cooperation project, or the "Haiti Project", which aims, among other things, to strengthen the epidemiological surveillance system in the country after the health system was disrupted by the earthquake in 2010. The Brazilian government has provided R$ 700,000 for the reconstruction of the laboratory and the purchase of equipment.

Alberto Kleiman, Special Advisor for International Affairs at the Ministry of Health, emphasized the fundamental role of the unit in monitoring and improving epidemiological surveillance in Haiti. "The laboratory is located in an underprivileged area, presenting compromised health conditions, and is far from the capital city where all the health services are concentrated. Accordingly, a well-structured, local epidemiological surveillance operation is very important," he explained.

The government is also funding the construction of a laboratory in the Les Cayes area of Haiti and Brazil has invested R$ 1.3 million in total in the two projects. Two Haitian technicians have also been trained to work in the laboratories. The professionals concluded a two-month internship at the Evandro Chagas Clinical Research Institute (IPEC) of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).

The two laboratories will perform surveillance activities in water quality and biological environmental factors (vectors, hosts, reservoirs and venomous animals), in addition to monitoring human populations exposed to biological, chemical and physical environmental factors. They will operate in an integrated manner with the National Laboratory of Public Health in Haiti, located in the capital Port-au-Prince, and built in 2006 by the Haitian Ministry of Health. The laboratory has been a reference in the diagnosis and monitoring of diseases such as malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis.

24 November 2012