Health
Recognizing that good physical and mental
health is essential for a productive and fulfilling life, and that
equitable access to quality health services is a critical element in
the development of democratic societies, the Heads of State and
Government of the Americas affirmed their commitment to support health
actions in the Hemisphere as an important component of the Summit
Process. In support of this commitment, hemispheric leaders addressed
health issues at the Summits of the Americas in the following ways:
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Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2005
IV Summit of the Americas
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At the
Fourth Summit of the Americas,
Heads of State and Government agreed to protect the health and
safety of all workers by promoting an integrated framework of
environmental, employment, health, and social security
policies.
In the
Declaration of Mar del Plata
leaders deemed it essential to foster a culture of prevention
and control of occupational hazards in the Hemisphere, in
order to improve and ensure healthy work environments for all
workers. For this reason, leaders believe it is a priority to
create effective labor inspection systems.
Heads of State and Government committed to enhance cooperation
and exchanges of information in the struggle against chronic
diseases, as well as emerging and re- emerging diseases such
as HIV/ AIDS, SARS, malaria, tuberculosis, avian flu, and
other health risks. Leaders agreed to develop crosscutting
strategies and cooperation mechanisms, principally within the
framework of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan
American Health Organization (PAHO). For this purpose, Heads
of State and Government emphasized the need to create and
implement national plans in preparation for the possibility of
influenza and avian flu pandemics.
In the Fourth summit of the Americas
Plan of Action,
Heads of State and Government agreed to strengthen primary
health actions as a step to prevent diseases and their
consequences. Leaders also agreed to implement the “Three Ones
Initiative”, to develop primary prevention of HIV/ AIDS and to
strengthen health services for young people and other
vulnerable groups.
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Monterrey, Mexico, 2004
Special Summit of
the Americas |
At the
Special Summit of the Americas held in Monterrey, Nuevo León,
Mexico, Heads of State and
Government made a commitment to have at least 600,000 people
undergoing antiretroviral treatment by 2005. The goal is to
provide universal access to this treatment as soon as possible
to accomplish the World Health Organization’s “3 by 5
Initiative” (3 millions by 2005) and the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG). The Heads of State and Government
also recognized that their political leadership was essential
to confronting the stigma, discrimination, and fear which have
deterred people in the past from being tested and accessing
treatment.
The Declaration of Nuevo Leon states that governments will
continue to broaden prevention, care, and promotion strategies
as well as investment in health in an effort to provide
quality health care for all and to improve social protection
for all people, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable
segments of society. The leaders of the hemisphere also
addressed “health problems associated with the unplanned
growth of densely populated areas”, the need for access to
resources and the problem of emerging and reemerging diseases.
To combat these diseases, they expressed their commitment to
reinforcing promotion, prevention, control and treatment
programs as well as deepening technical cooperation with key
agencies such as PAHO with a view to implementing integral
public health activities for the control and eradication of
these diseases.
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Quebec City, Canada, 2001
Third Summit of the Americas |
During the
Quebec City Summit in 2001, the
leaders of the hemisphere committed at the highest levels to
combat communicable diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS,
recognizing that this disease and other Sexually Transmitted
Diseases (STDs) constitute the greatest health risk to the
hemisphere. In that regard, governments committed to
increasing resources for prevention, education and access to
care and treatment as well as research. Governments also
addressed the need to combat non-communicative diseases
stemming from the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs,
as well as mental illness, cancer and diabetes, among others.
Finally, leaders committed to promoting health sector reform
to provide greater quality, efficiency and access to
healthcare in the hemisphere while harnessing the power of
telecommunications technology to reach remote populations and
facilitate exchange of information.
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Third Summit of the Americas,
Quebec City, Canada 2001
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Health
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Recognizing - further to the commitments made at the Miami and
Santiago Summits and in accordance with agreed-upon international
development goals in the areas of maternal, infant, child and
reproductive health - that good physical and mental health is
essential for a productive and fulfilling life, and that equitable
access to quality health services is a critical element in the
development of democratic societies, and for the stability and
prosperity of nations; that the enjoyment of the highest standard
of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being
without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic
or social condition, as set forth in the Constitution of the World
Health Organization; that gender equality and concern for
indigenous peoples, children, the elderly and under-served groups
must be of paramount concern in the development of health policy;
that health outcomes are affected by physical, social, economic
and political factors and that the technical cooperation of the
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and other relevant
international organizations should continue to support health
actions in the Hemisphere, in a manner consistent with the Shared
Agenda for Health in the Americas signed by PAHO, the IDB, and the
World Bank:
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Health Sector Reform |
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Reaffirm their commitment to an equity-oriented health
sector reform process, emphasizing their concerns for
essential public health functions, quality of care, equal
access to health services and health coverage, especially in
the fields of disease prevention and health promotion, and
improving the use of resources and administration of health
services; promote the continued use of scientifically
validated, agreed-upon, common indicators for assessing
effectiveness, equity and efficiency of health systems;
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Strengthen and promote development of domestic standards of
practice, accreditation and licensing procedures, codes of
ethics, and education and training programs for health
personnel; improve the mix of health personnel in the
provision of health services to better respond to national
health priorities;
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Intensify efforts and share and promote best practices to:
-reduce maternal and infant morbidity and mortality;
-provide quality reproductive health care and services for
women, men and adolescents; and
-carry out commitments made at the Cairo International
Conference on Population and Development and its five-year
follow-up in New York;
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Develop processes to evaluate the efficacy of alternative
health practices and medicinal products to ensure public
safety and share this experience and knowledge with other
countries in the Americas;
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Communicable Diseases |
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Commit, at the highest level, to combat HIV/AIDS and its
consequences, recognizing that this disease is a major
threat to the security of our people; in particular seek to
increase resources for prevention, education and access to
care and treatment as well as research; adopt a multi-sectoral
and gender sensitive approach to education, to prevention
and to controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases (STDs) by developing participatory
programs especially with high risk populations, and by
fostering partnerships with civil society including the mass
media, the business sector and voluntary organizations;
promote the use of ongoing horizontal mechanisms of
cooperation to secure the safety of blood; increase national
access to treatment of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses through
measures striving to ensure the provision and affordability
of drugs, including reliable distribution and delivery
systems and appropriate financing mechanisms consistent with
national laws and international agreements acceded to;
continue dialogue with the pharmaceutical industry and the
private sector in general to encourage the availability of
affordable antiretrovirals and other drugs for HIV/AIDS
treatment, and promote strategies to facilitate the sharing
of drug pricing information including, where appropriate,
that available in national data banks; promote and protect
the human rights of all persons living with HIV/AIDS,
without gender or age discrimination; utilize the June 2001
UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS as a platform to
generate support for hemispheric and national HIV/AIDS
programs;
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Enhance programs at the hemispheric, national and local
levels to prevent, control and treat communicable diseases
such as tuberculosis, dengue, malaria and Chagas;
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Promote healthy childhood development through: prenatal
care, expanded immunization programs, control of respiratory
and diarrheal diseases by conducting programs such as the
Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses, health
education, physical fitness, access to safe and nutritious
foods, and the promotion of breast-feeding;
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Non-Communicable Diseases |
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Implement community-based health care, prevention and
promotion programs to reduce health risks and
non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and
including hypertension, cancer, diabetes, mental illness as
well as the impact of violence and accidents on health;
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Participate actively in the negotiation of a proposed
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; develop and adopt
policies and programs to reduce the consumption of tobacco
products, especially as it affects children; share best
practices and lessons learned in the development of programs
designed to raise public awareness, particularly for
adolescents, about the health risks associated with tobacco,
alcohol and drugs;
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Connectivity |
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Provide
sound, scientific and technical information to health
workers and the public, utilizing innovations such as the
Virtual Health Library of the Americas; encourage the use
of tele-health as a means to connect remote populations
and to provide health services and information to
under-served groups, as a complement to the provision of
existing health care services;
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Quebec
Plan of Action (complete version):
English |
Spanish |
French |
Portuguese |
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Key documents in the area of
Health
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Health
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Report on the Meeting of Health Ministers of
the Americas
PAHO Headquarters, Washington D.C, September
27 to October 1, 2004 |
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The Meeting of the Health Ministers of
the Americas took place from September 27 to October 1, 2004
in PAHO Headquarters in Washington D.C. The conference
opened with a ceremony attended by Lee Jong-Wook,
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO);
Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Secretary-General of the
Organization of American States (OAS); and Tommy Thompson,
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Nicaragua's
Health Minister Dr. Jose Antonio Alvarado was chosen as
president of the week-long conference.
The health ministers who make up the Directing Council,
PAHO's governing body, spent the week working on defining
health policies for such issues as access to medicines,
scaling-up the treatment of HIV/AIDS, the Millennium
Development Goals and primary health care.
A key issue that surfaced often during the deliberations was
the impact on regional health systems of the hurricanes
which hit the Caribbean. Ministers from the affected
countries asked for help to overcome the effects of the
hurricanes and tropical storms, which killed as many as
1,514 in Haiti alone. In fact, the closing session of the
45th Directing Council dealt with the lessening of the
impact of natural disasters on health centers and clinics.
Dr. Jean-Luc Poncelet, the head of PAHO'S emergency
preparedness and disaster relief office, said that as a norm
severe natural disasters leave thousands of people without
health care - just when they most need it. He noted that
Hurricane Ivan affected 100% of Grenada's health
facilities...
For the
English version of the complete report, please click
Here
Para leer el reporte
completo en español, por favor
haga clic
Aquí
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“Health Partnership for Knowledge Sharing
and Learning in the Americas.”
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On October 15, 2003, the World Bank and the Pan American
Health Organization inaugurated the initiative called
“Health Partnership for Knowledge Sharing and Learning in
the Americas.” This initiative uses a combination of
learning methodologies and complementing technologies to
connect health systems at the grassroots level, so they may
share expertise to improve health services in the
hemisphere. The Partnership combines PAHO’s Virtual Campus
of Public Health and the World Bank’s Global Development
Learning Network, among others. Organizations that play a
role in building local health capacity in the Americas are
welcome to become involved in the Partnership to work
collectively towards helping the region meet its
health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
For more information on PAHO's
Virtual Campus of Public Health, please visit:
ENGLISH:
http://www.campusvirtualsp.org/eng/index.html
ESPAÑOL:
http://www.campusvirtualsp.org/esp/index.html
For more information on the
World Bank’s Global Development Learning Network (GDLN),
please visit:
ENGLISH:
http://www.gdln.org
ESPAÑOL:
http://www.gdln.org/sp/index.html
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World Bank loan for $750 million for health
services to Argentina.
October 28, 2003 |
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The Provincial Maternal-Child Health Sector Adjustment Loan
supports the restructuring of child and maternal health care
prevention in Argentina. A new insurance program guarantees
services to mothers and children in the country’s poorest
provinces. The Health Sector Reform will benefit other
segments of the poor population by ensuring access to basic
health services, including treatment of HIV/AIDS and
tuberculosis patients, delivery of nutritional supplements,
and of vaccinations.
For more information on this project, please visit:
Here
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“Increasing Investments in Health
Outcomes for the Poor”
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The World Health Organization’s 2nd Macroeconomics and Health
Consultation “Increasing Investments in Health Outcomes for
the Poor,” was held in Geneva, Switzerland, October 28-30,
2003. Participants included officials from 40 developing
nations, such as Brazil, whose Ministry of Health announced
that the Brazilian government now provides comprehensive and
free treatments to the 130.000 AIDS patients, of the more than
400.000 carriers in the country. The themes addressed at the
consultation were: the effectiveness of health delivery
systems and monitoring of outcomes; health in the
macroeconomic framework and allocation of resources; and,
predictability of external funding and increased coordination.
The Declaration concluded that countries should continue to be
supported in the preparation and implementation of national
macroeconomics and health investment plans. Member nations
pledged to establish and strengthen appropriate national and
sub-regional mechanisms with a specific focus on poverty
reduction, and to give attention within investment plans to
human resource constraints.
For the English version of the Declaration, please visit:
Here
Para leer la Declaración en español, por favor visite:
Aquí
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“HIV/AIDS in Latin American Countries:
The Challenges Ahead”
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On November 18, 2003, the World Bank released a new
report “HIV/AIDS in Latin American Countries: The Challenges
Ahead” that found that there is a need for better use of
resources, stronger HIV/AIDS surveillance, and broader civil
society participation. By September 2003, the Bank had approved
over $550 million in loans to help finance the implementation of
HIV/AIDS prevention and control programs in much of Latin America;
the major focus of support is the Caribbean, the world's second
most affected region.
For the complete report, please visit:
Here
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$10 million grant for HIV/AIDS prevention
and treatment in Guyana. |
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As part of the World Bank’s $155 million Caribbean
Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Adaptable Program
Lending (APL), the grant is expected to strengthen Guyana’s
prevention and treatment efforts. Guyana, which has the second
highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the Caribbean, will draw on the
grant for institutional capacity strengthening, monitoring,
evaluation and research; increased response by civil society
groups and government ministries; and expanding the health sector
response to HIV/AIDS.
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5th EUROLAC Forum, “Improving Health Systems
Performance and Health Outcomes.”
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This forum was held in Recife, Brazil in April 13-16,
2004. The meeting of ministers and health specialists from 52
countries is a series of technical forums on issues related to
health reform. The main focus this year was the improvement of
health systems to overcome access inequity and achieve better
health results in Latin America. Participants agreed that, due to
the segmentation of health systems in Latin America, increased
government spending on health is necessary but insufficient to
reach the health goals. Progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals is to be accelerated through improved policies
and institutions; further, health spending needs to be better
targeted to the poor and disadvantaged groups to reduce extreme
inequities in health provision. The Forum also discussed the
effects on public health of economic and social integration, and
the development of free trade zones in the European Union, to
learn how these experiences can be applied to the current
integration process in the Americas.
For more information on EUROLAC, please
visit:
www.worldbank.org/eurolac
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Vaccination Week in the Americas (April
24-30, 2004).
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The Pan American Health Organization’s hemispheric
immunization effort aimed to vaccinate approximately 40 million
persons, focusing on children, those living in rural border
regions, and vulnerable groups such as women and the elderly. The
campaign was extended through May in some countries to reach
specific objectives, as in El Salvador and Peru. One of the
lessons learned in the initiative, PAHO officials noted, is that
immunization in the entire continent should be permanent, and that
surveillance systems need strengthening to identify any outbreak
and move rapidly to attack it. Quick reactions in recent outbreaks
show that emergency interventions and vaccinations are essential
to stop expansion of a disease.
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Mexico ratified the Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control (June 2004).
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Mexico was the
first country in the Americas to ratify the framework
convention. The convention is the first global accord on a
public health theme and the first legal instrument designed
to reduce fatalities and illnesses related to tobacco.
Among other things, the convention goes after the packaging,
publicity, and price of cigarettes, and seeks to protect
against second-hand smoke.
For more
information, please visit:
ENGLISH:
http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/pr040603.htm
ESPAÑOL:
http://www.paho.org/Spanish/DD/PIN/ps040603.htm
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PAHO's Strategic Plan for 2003-2007 for the
implementation of Summit mandates. |
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