by  www.paho.org/arg

On June 27^th 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina signed a joint declaration with eight Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries for cooperation in the areas of medicines, prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, transplants, chronic noncommunicable diseases, and initiatives that address social determinants of health, including housing, education, employment, and sanitation, among others. The initiative will be channeled through the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), with support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The declaration on triangular cooperation among Argentina, the Caribbean countries, and PAHO/WHO to guarantee access to public health goods was signed during the Meeting for Strengthening International Cooperation in Health, which began this Wednesday with the participation of PAHO Director Carissa Etienne, Argentine Health Minister Juan Manzur and Foreign Affairs Minister Héctor Timerman, and ministers and authorities from the Caribbean nations.

This initiative will enable Argentina to transmit its experience to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago in several health areas, including drug safety, quality, efficacy, and access; sexually transmitted disease prevention and control; transplant coordination; management in the territorial health approach to health determinants; and control of non-communicable disease, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, among others.

The declaration seeks “to put health on the development agenda, improve policy design and implementation, and strengthen cooperation ties,” for which it includes projects “to carry out human resources training initiatives, the exchange of experts, and sharing of successful policies and programs, which will help to strengthen the productive capability of the countries,” according to the text signed during the closing of the meeting, held at Palacio San Martín.

“Argentina is opening its experience to countries of the Caribbean as it has opened to other countries, through cooperation based on reciprocal learning and mutual respect,” highlighted Etienne, who is visiting Argentina for the first time since taking office as Director of PAHO this past February. “We are taking the first steps of, what I hope, will be a long journey. There has been considerable movement in Latin America and the Caribbean to develop partnerships that go beyond languages. And today we are giving shape to those relations,” she stated. During her stay, Dr. Etienne was received this Wednesday by Minister Manzur and tomorrow, Friday, she will visit El Cruce Hospital, in Florencio Varela, a locality in Greater Buenos Aires.

Argentine Secretary of Health Determinants Eduardo Bustos Villar said that the primary objective of the declaration is to define its scope, “to then move forward on the specifics that will come out of this meeting. (…) For the Argentine government, it is highly gratifying and fills us with pride to have been leading actors at this meeting, which also implies a challenge,” he pointed out. In the document, the countries support “development with social inclusion,” recognize that health problems “tend to mainly affect vulnerable groups,” point out the persistence of communicable diseases in the nations, and rank non-communicable diseases as “one of the principal obstacles to development in the 21st century.” Furthermore, they consider that the international financial crisis “is an opportunity for developing countries to strengthen international technical cooperation with the values of South-South cooperation.”

Also participating in the meeting were the Ministers of Health of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Clyton Burgin; of Grenada, Clarice Modeste; and of Suriname, Michael Blockland; the permanent secretaries of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Andrew Skerritt; and of Antigua and Barbuda, Edson Joseph; the Chief of Epidemiology of Dominica, Paul Ricketts; the Director of Policy Planning and Development of Jamaica, Sonia Copeland; the representative of Trinidad and Tobago, Jason Camacho; the director of CARPHA, James Hospedales; and the program manager for Health Sector Development of CARICOM, Rudolf Cummings, among others.