ARTICLE - BRAZIL, CUBA AID HAITI

BRAZIL, CUBA AID CHOLERA-HIT HAITI
(AFP) -

BRASILIA - Brazil, Cuba and some Brazilian universities have joined forces to provide health care to cholera-ridden Haiti, including building a treatment centre near its capital, the Brazilian Health Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said it signed agreements with Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Federal University of Santa Catarina to set up a network of health clinics and train 2,340 health workers in Haiti. "All the activities will be organised with the collaboration of health teams from Haiti and Cuba made up of doctors, nurses and epidemiologists," it said in a statement.

A separate agreement is expected to be signed later this week with Cuba and the World Health Organisation to create a cholera treatment centre in Carrefour, near Port-au-Prince, to contain the cholera epidemic, the ministry said.

Health workers are already being trained in Carrefour, it added, and Cuba will supply construction workers for the project and later doctors and nurses for the center. The agreements are part of the humanitarian and financial aid package Brazil promised after Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake that killed some 250,000 people and left 1.3 million people homeless.

The cholera epidemic that broke out in mid-October in northern Haiti has so far killed more than 1,300 people and infected more than 57,000, putting in question Sunday's presidential election.-