PAHO Supports Media Project on Global Health
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is supporting a major multimedia project that seeks to educate U.S. audiences about global public health issues and motivate them to take action. The project, Rx for Survival—-A Global Health Challenge, has as its flagship a six-hour public television series that will air throughout the United States in November. The series was coproduced by the WGBH public television station's NOVA Science Unit and Vulcan Productions. The project will also feature reporting from a broad range of media partners, including TIME magazine, National Public Radio, and Penguin Press. Viewers will be offered tools and opportunities to take action through Rx for Child Survival, a campaign to raise awareness and prompt citizen action on behalf of some of the world's poorest children. To get involved visit www.pbs.org/rxforsurvival.

New Web Course Teaches Risk Communication
An interactive, self-taught course on risk communication is available at the website of the Pan American Center for Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences, one of 10 scientific and technical centers of PAHO. The course focuses on the history, myths, components, and process of risk communication. It teaches students to recognize the importance of risk perception and how to create and implement plans to communicate risks according to community needs and specific problems. The course was developed by PAHO and the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Those who finish the course successfully receive a certificate of completion. The course is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese at www.cepis.ops-oms.org/tutorial6.

Carlos Wilson (left), of PAHO/WHO's country office in Brazil, with Angolan colleagues in Uige. © PAHO/WHO

PAHO Staff Assist in Angola's Marburg Crisis
Two Portuguese-speaking PAHO staff members recently assisted Angola’s efforts to control the outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, which has claimed more than 300 lives this year. Marlo Libel, of PAHO’s Communicable Diseases unit in Washington, helped recruit a team of WHO experts to help Angolan officials respond to the crisis. Carlos Wilson de Andrade Filho, a communications consultant in PAHO’s country office in Brazil, traveled to Angola’s northern state of Uige and worked with local officials on a campaign to persuade families to bring their ill to the hospital rather than treat them at home, which increases the risk of spread of infection. Both Libel and Wilson are Brazilian nationals.

Gates Grant Aids Cervical Cancer Prevention
The Global Health Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has granted $1.4 million to the Pan American Health and Education Foundation to support PAHO's cervical cancer prevention efforts. The funds will support an established PAHO demonstration project in a remote Amazonian region of Peru. The project is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a technique known as visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) for use as a cancer screening technology in low-resource settings. PAHO is one of five international agencies in the Alliance for Cervical Cancer Prevention, which fights cervical cancer in developing countries. The Pan American Health and Education Foundation is an independent philanthropic partner of PAHO.

Chinese Health Officials Visit PAHO
Four high-level officials from the Ministry of Health of China visited PAHO headquarters in Washington, D.C., in mid-May as part of a two-week U.S. study tour on "Cooperative Medical Systems in Rural Health." The officials met with members of PAHO's executive management team, human resources, technical units, and PAHO's fellowship program. Sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), the study tour provided an opportunity for cross-regional dialogue and developing linkages for future technical collaboration. The Chinese delegation also traveled to Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans to meet with government, university, and health insurance officials. One of the Chinese officials, Lusheng Wang, is well known for his work on rural health insurance and has published a book on the subject.

Awards and Honors
Antonio Hernandez, PAHO regional advisor on health services engineering and maintenance, received the first Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation/Institute for Technology and Healthcare Clinical Application Award. The award honors a clinical engineer whose innovation solves a clinical patient care problem and demonstrates clinical application and efficacy. Hernandez has been at PAHO since 1982.

Martha Pelaez, PAHO's recently retired regional advisor on aging, received a presidential medal and certificate from the International Association of Gerontology (IAG), in recognition of her contributions to world gerontology. The award was presented at the opening session of the 18th World Congress of Gerontology in Rio de Janeiro in late June. Also honored were Gary Andrews, past president of the IAG; Alexandre Kalache, chief of WHO's Aging and Health Program; and Alexandre Sidorenko, the United Nations' focal point on aging.

Staff of the PAHO/WHO office in Argentina received a special award from the Pan American Health and Education Foundation for support of the PALTEX program, which provides low-cost textbooks and supplies to students of life sciences and medicine in Latin America and the Caribbean. The award was made at the 5th Regional Meeting of PALTEX Administrators in the Dominican Republic in June. PALTEX is an initiative of the Pan American Health and Education Foundation.