The lack of significant progress in international health collaboration combined with the way that health problems were interfering with international trade in the Americas must have been among the factors which motivated the second meeting of the International Conference of the American States (October 1901 - January 1902) to direct the convening of an International Sanitary Conference in order to organize an International Sanitary Bureau for the Americas. On December 2, 1902, at the First International Sanitary Convention of the Americas in Washington, D.C., 11 nations joined to form what has become the Pan American Health Organization.
