The Fourth Haiti-Brazil-Cuba tripartite meeting in the Cuban capital concluded its deliberations Thursday on a project to rebuild Haiti's healthcare system, decimated by the January 12 earthquake.

Jaques Hugues Henry, dean of the Port-au-Prince Medical Faculty and chief of the Haitian delegation, acknowledged the virtues of linking polyclinics with the community, the humane treatment of patients, and Cuba's preventive healthcare approach.

Participants in the meeting visited the Institute of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, where they were attended by Deputy Public Health Minister Lorenzo Somarriba, and the center's director, Mariano Bonet.

The meeting was a source of exchange to collaborate with a new program for these specialties and to incorporate health labs, activists for monitoring hygiene and vectors, and education work in Haitian communities.

Cuban experts are currently working in seven departments of the Caribbean nation, included 30 professionals in hygiene and epidemiology and 10 in microbiology. Two mobile labs to control vectors will open shortly.

Fernando Assoni, with the Brazilian delegation, expressed the importance of working together with other countries and Haitian health authorities, and offered the support of Brazilian health professionals in treating people recovering from the quake.