Guyana elected member of PAHO’s Directing Council General Committee

Public Health Minister, Dr George Norton was among the panel of Health Ministers and other officials who met during the last week of September at the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) office in Washington, DC to discuss ways in which public health challenges can be tackled across the Region.
Dr Norton was accompanied by Dr Karen Boyle, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the Public Health Ministry, to the 55th Directing Council, where Guyana was elected a member of the Directing Council General Committee along with Jamaica, Grenada and Honduras.
Meanwhile, regional health representatives attended the 13th 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.
Caribbean Member States have committed to developing National Polio Preparedness and Response Plans in order to achieve the required 80 per cent 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.
Following the recently commemorated Caribbean Wellness Week, at which Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) were topical over the past few years, discussions continued along this path. New initiatives for preventing NCDs and treatment methods were explored. Countries were also 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 addition, 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.
Meanwhile, at the conclusion of the Directing Council, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General, Dr Margaret Chan declared Latin America and the Caribbean measles free.