PORT-AU-PRINCE – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter briefed Haitian officials on the Carter Center’s plan to help eliminate malaria from the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

At a joint press conference with Haitian President Rene Preval, Carter stressed the importance of the initiative, which is expected to require 10 years and roughly $200 million.

The former president’s Atlanta-based Carter Center is currently carrying out a $200,000 binational pilot program and hopes to find donors willing to fund a comprehensive eradication effort.

Carter said that this program is very important, above all for Haiti, “because 5 percent of Haitian citizens suffer from malaria.”

Hispaniola is the sole enclave in the Western Hemisphere currently afflicted by malaria.

Carter stressed that the treatment to eliminate malaria is well established and can be provided at a cost of $1.50 per day to residents of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Preval welcomed the Carter initiative and said that political instability had contributed to the persistence of malaria in Haiti.

He recalled that between 1957 and 1985 “Haiti was almost declared free of malaria,” but with the “political disturbances” the situation deteriorated.

“Given that the disease knows no borders, we have to make an effort in both countries,” he said.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne illness, causes more than a million deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization.

In 2007 in Hispaniola, 33,000 cases of malaria were registered, 90 percent of them in Haiti, and 200 deaths.

Haiti, where “the circumstances are much more serious” with regard to malaria, would receive 63 percent of the plan’s resources, while the Dominican Republic would get 32 percent. The remaining 5 percent would be deposited in a common global fund. EFE