Public Health mulls sanitary barrier along the border

Santo Domingo.- The Public Health Ministry on Wednesday said it might install a sanitary barrier along Dominican Republic’s 350-kilometer border with Haiti, to keep diseases from entering its territory.

Environmental Health deputy minister Roberto Berroa said an international agricultural sanitation agency works to determine how to tighten the health controls for people. "The idea is a health arc, where everyone who pass through the border or port is sterilized."

The official said a curtain or arc would be a vapor mist that kills germs and viruses, even in the lungs, but which wouldn’t be a risk to health.

For the feet, there will be a liquid where the shoes are placed, to kill bacteria, similar to the measures taken during the cholera outbreak several years ago. "With that we can avoid the entry of cholera and other diseases here, not only from Haiti, but in general."

Berroa said tourists crossing the country’s unprotected borders are one of the biggest health risks. "People come from Haiti, and come without any barrier … and we’re working on that, to see how we can place a health protection barrier nationwide."