The desire to form a regional health partnership motivates representatives of the various American republics to meet in 1902 and establish the Pan American Sanitary Bureau. That constituting desire to partner in health is echoed in an early message in the Boletín de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana: "The ideals of that unique concept we call 'Pan Americanism' comprise all facets of human activity--cultural, commercial, economic, and political. ... Our purpose is to strengthen the ties of understanding, extend cooperation among health workers in the three Americas and demonstrate the ideals of brotherhood and harmony." Indeed, over the ensuing decades countless partners--from the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1920s to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the 21st century--join the Bureau in its regional health work.
In 1958, then director of the Bureau, Dr. Fred Soper, notes that: "Over the past decade, the most important accomplishment in the field of public health in the Americas has been the rapid increase in international collaboration to solve health problems in the hemisphere and the sustained improvement in the coordination of activities of the various official entities participating in this work."
In 1961, with the Charter of Punta del Este and especially the Ten-Year Public Health Program of the Alliance for Progress, health transcends the sphere of specialized agencies to become a collective concern of heads of State. Countries in the Region, at the highest political level, agree for the first time on a continental program to advance health. Their commitment underscores the fact that health can no longer be considered just a sector matter; rather, it conditions and is conditioned by social progress and economic development.
In 1986, director Dr. Carlyle Guerra de Macedo notes the Organization's evolution: "In the early decades of its existence, the Pan American Sanitary Bureau had as its mission the control of infectious diseases in order to stimulate commerce among nations throughout the Region. Today health is seen as a human right and as a foundation of peace among nations. The Bureau's original purpose has evolved in tandem with economic, social, and political changes experienced in the Americas and across the globe."
Today, every one of PAHO's programs of technical cooperation enjoys the partnership of an array of entities--national, international, nongovernmental, and private sector--in a shared agenda to advance health in the Americas.
