CHICAGO, USA: The president of the Haiti Dental Society, Dr Samuel Prophete, has asked US dental associations and professionals for support to rebuild the public health system of his country and for help to colleagues whose offices have been destroyed. Dr Prophete, who was invited by the Chicago Dental Society to join this year’s Midwinter meeting, gave a speech during the opening session of the Chicago Midwinter Meeting as part of an initiative of Dental Tribune Latin America to help colleagues in Haiti following the 12 January earthquake.

"The people of Haiti will forever be grateful to the international dental community by the aid received in shelters and makeshift refugee centres in the form of hygiene kits with brushes, toothpaste and soap, and for the volunteer dentists who have gone to help, along with their Haitian colleagues, to bring assistance to the needy," said Dr Prophete. He added that this tragedy will also be an opportunity to honour its victims by assisting in the titanic task of rebuilding Haiti.

Officers of the American Dental Association (ADA) also held a meeting requested by Dental Tribune Latin America to seek solutions to the crisis in Haiti, specifically to help colleagues that have lost family members, offices and means of work. At the ADA headquarters in Chicago, Dr Ronald Tankersley, ADA president, Dr Raymond Gist, president-elect, executive director Kathleen O'Loughlin and the director of the Division of Global Affairs welcomed an international delegation which included Dr Prophete, Dr Adolfo Rodriguez, president of the Latin American Dental Federation (FOLA), Dr Adán Yáñez, president of the Ibero-Latin American Dental Federation (FDILA), Torsten Oemus, president of Dental Tribune International, and Javier de Pison, editor of Dental Tribune Latin America.