SANTO DOMINGO.- Haitian Minister of Agriculture Joanas Gué said the Dominican government was “negligent” in its management of the recent bird flu outbreak, the newspaper Diario Libre said.
Gué, speaking in an interview on radio Metropole over the weekend, said Dominican authorities waited too long to begin destroying prized fight roosters that may have been exposed to the H5N1 virus and in shuttering farms that reported infections. He also said the government waited too long to bring the problem to the public’s attention.
The official said Haiti is worried about the government’s lax policies in veterinary health and recommended that authorities extend their monitoring of the fight roosters to other regions of the country.
In
the meantime, he
said, Haiti will
continue its ban
on imports of
Dominican
chickens and
eggs until its
government
receives
certification
from the World
Organization for
Animal Health,
which will
investigate the
outbreak
further. He criticized the
Dominican farm
industry which he
said was
pressing the
international
body to render a
favorable
report,
according to
Diario Libre.
"The Dominican government is not in conflict with Haiti but is amiss in the management of the problem,” Gué said.
