Lawmaker urges more control against Ebola

Santo Domingo.- Deputy Vinicio Castillo on Thursday asked Public Health minister Freddy Hidalgo to include the border with Haiti among its measures to keep the Ebola virus out of the country, citing previous epidemics that arrived from there.

The minority FNP party lawmaker warned Haiti’s direct weekly flights to the African continent, source of the deadly disease, makes it necessary to include the border in the control measures, in addition to ports and airports.

He said both the chikungunya and cholera viruses that have hit the country in recent months come from Africa, and in the latter’s case, entered the Dominican Republic from Haiti.

He said he doesn’t want to create alarm, but to urge the authorities to adopt measures along the border and protect the Dominican population.

"I believe and there’s the precedent of the cholera which was in America or in the Caribbean came precisely through members of Minustah (UN peacekeepers) who brought it from Africa," Castillo said.

He said chikungunya also came via Martinique aboard direct contacts with flights to Africa, for which special preventive measures had to be taken on the border, “especially taking into account the number of flights."