Guyana elected to PAHO’s Directing Council General Committee

Oct 16, 2016 News

Caribbean member states have committed to developing National Polio Preparedness and Response Plans in order to achieve the required 80 percent target coverage for all the surveillance indicators for Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP).
Countries were advised to integrate the surveillance for polio with the neurological manifestation of Zika.
This development occurred at the 55th Directing Council where Guyana was elected as a member of the Directing Council General Committee of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO). Also elected to the Committee were Jamaica, Grenada and Honduras.
Guyana was represented by Minister of Public Health, Dr. George Norton, who was on the panel of Health Ministers and other officials who met during the last week of September at PAHO, Washington DC to discuss ways in which public health challenges can be tackled across the region.
The Minister was accompanied by Dr. Karen Boyle, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Public Health.
The Regional Health representatives attended the Thirtieth Meeting of the Council on Human and Social Development (COHSOD) which focused on matters such as, chemical risk and thermo-nuclear risk management and infectious diseases.
Discussions were also held on the Caribbean Cooperation in Health Priorities and Regional Public Goods, Management, Governance and Resourcing and the Regional Health Strategy. Countries were encouraged to take local ownership of moving the COHSOD agenda forward by ensuring support at the highest policy level.
Following the recently commemorated Caribbean Wellness Week, during which Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) was topical, discussions over the past few years have continued along this path. New initiatives for preventing NCDs and treatment methods were explored. Countries were encouraged to implement health finance reform inclusive of increased taxation on harmful products such as foods high in sugars, salt, fat, alcohol and cigarettes.
In relation to HIV/AIDS, the Region’s achievements in relation to the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV were addressed. It was recommended that countries strengthen the data collection for HIV and Syphilis and integrate available data sources to provide timely monitoring of Maternal Child Health programme performance within the context of existing national information systems.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Margaret Chan, declared Latin America and the Caribbean measles free.

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