Steps for Preventing Infectious Diseases in Women1

Infectious disease prevention must take into account women’s unique vulnerabilities and must consider biomedical, social, economic, and personal factors

Saúde ambiental na América Latina e no Caribe: numa encruzilhada

There has been undeniable progress in addressing health, environment and sustainable development in recent decades. Yet, global gains have not been distributed equally, leaving major populations groups excluded, with negative consequences to health. We are also beginning to recognize emerging global problems with significant local impacts, mostly in impoverished populations, both in rural and urban settings. Environmental health is at the crossroads, where new models and partnerships are required. This paper explores these issues with specific reference to the Latin American and Caribbean countries.É inegável que a discussão sobre saúde, meio ambiente e desenvolvimento sustentável tem progredido muito em décadas recentes. Contudo, ganhos globais não têm sido distribuídos de maneira uniforme, deixando grandes grupos populacionais excluídos, com conseqüências negativas à saúde. Também estamos começando a reconhecer problemas globais emergentes que causam impactos locais significativos, principalmente em populações pobres, tanto em áreas rurais como urbanas. A saúde ambiental está numa encruzilhada, em que novos modelos e parcerias são necessários. Este artigo explora essas questões especificamente em relação aos países latino-americanos e caribenhos

Low-Cost Safe Water for the World: A Practical Interim Solution

A very large segment of the world's population is without a microbiologically safe water supply. It is estimated that in Latin America more than 40% of the population is utilizing water of dubious quality for human consumption. This figure is probably even higher in Africa and areas of southeast Asia. Water used for drinking and food preparation can be an important route of transmission for many of the most widespread and debilitating of the diseases that afflict humans. The cholera pandemic which struck Latin America in January 1991, and has become endemic in many of the countries, continues to exemplify the public health significance of contaminated drinking water. Ideally, this neglected segment of the world's population should be served with piped water systems that provide a continuous supply of microbiologically safe water, but this would require such enormous investments of financial and human resources that it is not reasonable to expect that it will be accomplished. Interim practical measures to assure microbio-logically safe water are necessary. The public health intervention to accomplish this is described in this paper and has an annual per family cost of which ranges between $1.50 and$4. It consists of providing individual households with one or preferably two suitable water containers in which to disinfect and store the essential quantities of water that need to be free of pathogens, with the containers of a design that will preclude recontamination of the contents and enable the production and distribution of the water disinfectants to be managed at the local level. It includes the necessary component of public education, promotion and involvement to establish the sustainability of the measures as a community-based endeavor. Investigation and demonstration projects are being carried out in 11 countries to determine and perfect and appropriate intervention, and it has been proven that it is economically, technically and socially feasible to assure microbiologically safe water for the world's population that is threatened by waterborne diseases. Carefully controlled microbiological analysis of the untreated and treated water shows that waterborne pathogens can be destroyed or inactivated, and carefully controlled epidemiological studies being carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that this intervention achieves considerable reduction in the incidence of waterborne disease. It is recommended that all developing countries initiate programs to replicate the health measure described in this paper in order to test its validity and to adapt it to their local conditions

La igualdad de género: ¿por qué Brasil está experimentando retrocesos?

Brazil now faces a backlash against gender equality, which negatively impact women's health policies, especially those concerning sexual and reproductive rights. This backlash is a result of a long process that has intensified because of growing religious conservatism in government. However, the current moment is even more critical

The Next WHO Director-General’s Highest Priority: a Global Treaty on the Human Right to Health

Amidst the many challenges facing the next WHO Director-General, the new WHO head should find WHO’s foremost priority in its most important constitutional pillar: the right to health. The centerpiece of this endeavor should be leadership on the Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), the proposed global treaty based in the right to health and aimed at national and global health equity. The treaty would reform global governance for health to enhance accountability, transparency, and civil society participation and protect the right to health in trade, investment, climate change, and other international regimes, while catalyzing governments to institutionalize the right to health at community through to national levels. It would usher in a new era of global health with justice – vast improvements in health outcomes, equitably distributed. With the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control having served as a proof of concept, the FCGH would be an innovative treaty finding solutions to overcome global health failings in accountability, equality, financing, and inter-sectoral coherence. It would include a global health accountability framework, encompassing, civil society engagement, independent monitoring, and plans for redress, while catalyzing national health accountability strategies, accountability mechanisms, disaggregated data, and community participation. National health equity strategies, pro-poor pathways to universal health coverage, and robust non-discrimination provisions could elevate the voices, priorities, and ultimately power of marginalized populations. The FCGH would include a national and global health financing framework, while reaching beyond the health sector with right to health assessments, public health participation in developing international agreements, and responsibility for all sectors for improving health outcomes. The FCGH would reinvigorate WHO’s global health leadership, breathing new life into its founding principles. It could become the platform for reforming WHO as a rights-based 21st century institution, with badly-needed reforms, such as community participation, new priorities favouring social determinants of health, and a culture of transparency and accountability. The next Director-General should launch a historic effort to align national and global governance for with human rights through the FCGH, bringing the world closer to global health with justice

MEETING OF THE COMMISSION ON THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Objectives a. Consultation with Canadian Government b. Consultation on indigenous health c. Expert comments on interim statemen