Regional health body discards diphtheria outbreak

Santo Domingo.- There is no outbreak of diphtheria in the Dominican Republic, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) representative Alma Morales Salinas affirmed Mon.

She said there shouldn’t be a collective panic because each year the country maintains a vaccination program against the disease .

Morales said that for PAHO to declare an infectious disease caused by the bacterium as an outbreak, there must be at least two confirmed and interrelated cases and in the country there is only one confirmed case. “As of today, the Public Health Ministry of the Dominican Republic hasn’t confirmed more cases, apart from the four-year-old child from Haiti.”

Nonetheless the representative of the regional body ensures that there’s a need to be alert to identify the disease, but not to revaccinate the population that is already immunologically protected, but the risk groups such as children under five who haven’t been vaccinated, health workers, children of school age and inmates.

“We as an organization call on countries to keep their vaccine coverage above 95% in the vaccine population for this type of disease.”