Colombia Gets Yellow Fever Vaccine
Colombia received 1.5 million doses of yellow fever vaccine from Brazil in late January to combat an outbreak of jungle yellow fever that has spread to four departments. The vaccines were financed through the Pan American Health Organization's revolving fund for vaccines and supplemented an earlier 500,000 doses provided by Venezuela. In the first weeks of January, Colombia reported 27 cases of yellow fever, including eight deaths. Cases in 2003 totaled 106. The most recent cases were close to urban centers with high rates of Aedes aegypti infestation, raising concern that the disease could become reurbanized. Health authorities have declared a state of emergency and launched a massive vaccination effort targeting everyone over age 1 in the affected areas, where some 3 million people live.

New Collaborating Center in El Salvador
The Department of Prosthetics and Orthopedics of El Salvador's University of Don Bosco became a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for Orthopedic Technology and Rehabilitation in September 2003. As Latin America's newest PAHO/WHO collaborating center, it will help implement and improve training programs in this field throughout the region. It will also prepare teaching materials for distance learning, develop appropriate prosthetic and orthopedic technologies, and undertake other research and training activities. The center, which has support from the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) as well as PAHO, joins some 75 other PAHO/WHO collaborating centers in Latin America and the Caribbean and nearly 250 centers in the Americas as a whole.

Awards for Excellence in Public Health
The Pan American Health and Education Foundation, PAHO’s nonprofit partner, recently presented three of its annual awards for excellence in inter-American public health.

The Fred L. Soper Award for Excellence in Health Literature was presented in December 2003 to five Mexican researchers for a study documenting the rise of obesity and nutrition-related diseases in Mexico. The winners were: Juan A. Rivera Dommarco, Simón Barquera, Fabricio Campirano, Ismael Campos, Margarita Safdie and Víctor Tovar. Their article, "Epidemiological and Nutritional Transition in Mexico: Rapid Increase of Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases and Obesity," was published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

The Pedro N. Acha Award for Veterinary Public Health went to Barbara Hott Harvey, of the University of Santo Tomas in Santiago, Chile, for a study of the distribution of rabies in bats in Santiago. The author used geographic information systems (GIS) and demonstrated their potential as a tool for rabies-control programs.

The Clarence Moore Award for Voluntary Service was presented to the Colombian Air Patrol (PAC) of Antioquia for its outstanding work in serving the health needs of inhabitants of remote areas of Colombia. The group provides pilots and medically equipped small planes to fly volunteer physicians and paramedics to difficult-to-reach areas.

PAHO Recognized for Bioethics Work
In January, PAHO's bioethics program marked its 10th anniversary at the Hall of Honors of the University of Chile, joined by representatives of the program's original sponsors: the government of Chile, the University of Chile and PAHO. Former Chilean president Patricio Aylwin was on hand for the celebration, which was followed by a meeting of the International Advisory Committee on Bioethics. In September 2003, the Latin American Federation of Bioethics Institutions (FELAIBE) awarded PAHO and its top bioethics expert, Fernando Lolas Stepke, the Van Rensselaer Potter Award, for outstanding services in bioethics in the Americas. Lolas is chief of PAHO’s Bioethics Unit, based at the University of Chile in Santiago. The award was announced at FELAIBE's 2003 congress in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Youths Call for Better Health Protection
Young people attending the 12th First Ladies' Summit of the Americas in the Dominican Republic in October 2003 called on the region's governments to improve access to high-quality, integrated health services for children and adolescents, including programs on sexual and reproductive health. The call came in a special Youth Declaration originally drafted at an "Americas Youth Voice" meeting last July, sponsored by PAHO and the Dominican government. With the theme of "Youth and Poverty," the First Ladies' Summit also addressed educational and employment opportunities, family relations and greater spaces for youth participation in national life.

PAHO, World Bank Partner for Knowledge
PAHO and the World Bank have formed a new "Health Partnership for Knowledge Sharing and Learning in the Americas" that will use videoconferencing and Internet technologies to promote communication among public health leaders and professionals. Drawing on PAHO's Virtual Campus of Public Health and the World Bank's Global Development Learning Network, the initiative uses videoconference-based dialogues along with seminars, broadcasts and on-line courses to reach stakeholders from the policymaking to the grassroots level. A key goal is to support countries' efforts to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals, including reducing child and maternal mortality by two-thirds and three-quarters, respectively, and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

Caribbean Awards for Health Journalism
PAHO's Caribbean Program Coordination Office (CPC) in Barbados presented its annual Caribbean Awards for Excellence in Health Journalism in November 2003 at a ceremony attended by PAHO Director Mirta Roses Periago. Nine awards and eight certificates of merit went to journalists from the English-speaking Caribbean for reporting in print and electronic media on topics ranging from children’s rights to health and economic development. Judges said the record number of entries included some of the best examples of health journalism submitted since the contest began in 1992. The competition is aimed at strengthening coverage of health issues in the Caribbean media.