Havana, Mar 20, (RHC), – Experts with the World Health Organization (WHO) will arrive March 22 in Havana to consider the certification of Cuba as the first country in the world to have wiped out the transmission of Syphilis and HIV via mother to child.

The announcement was made by first deputy Health minister Doctor Jose Angel Portal during a meeting with the press in Havana also attended by Health minister Roberto Morales and other officials.

The WHO representatives will visit doctor´s offices in neighborhoods in Havana, central Villa Clara and eastern Santiago de Cuba provinces, where they will evaluate the results of the Cuban Prevention Program for Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

The deputy minister said Cuba is in conditions to be certified by the world organization given its notable results in the area.

The certification of a country for having eliminated the mother-to-child transmission of congenital syphilis must include indicators such as a vertical transmission rate equal or below 0.5 in every 1 thousand live birds, and for HIV the rate must be equal or below 2 percent, said Doctor Rosaida Ochoa, director of the Promotion of Health and Disease Prevention Unit.