Regional Stories
In northern Brazil, the land of the Yanomami people extends 96,650 km² across the states of Amazonas and Roraima, an area equivalent to the territory of Portugal. This land houses more than 31,000 inhabitants considered by the country's National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai) as “peoples of recent contact” – indigenous people who…
The appearance of COVID-19 in 2020 made wastewater surveillance, a tool for tracking infectious diseases in sewage, an increasingly common public health practice. As genetic evidence of pathogens can be excreted in feces, scientists use the method to monitor SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, and have expanded its use to uncover the presence of…
The Labo Moto project, a joint initiative of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Haitian Ministry of Health, provides “nurses on wheels” who travel across the country by motorcycle to collect cholera samples from suspected cases and deliver them for laboratory analysis, contributing to rapid diagnosis and response.
The pandemic set back progress and revealed that health systems remain fragile and susceptible. It also confirmed the need to transform them to respond effectively to a crisis without disrupting essential health services.
December 2022
In 2004, Mexico became the first country in the Americas to ratify the landmark WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, but it would take another 20 years before its measures became enshrined in Mexican law. “When you’re up against one of the biggest, most powerful industries in the world, endurance, persistence, and collaboration are the…
November 2022
Supported by PAHO, they inform and mobilize communities to prevent and treat cholera, and support surveillance as the cholera situation worsens in the country. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is supporting Haiti’s response to the cholera outbreak, including through the training and deployment of community health…
November 2022
With more than 3,000 infections to date, Peru is among the countries of the Americas that has reported the most cases of monkeypox not linked to countries in Africa, where the disease is endemic.
In May 2022, an atypical outbreak of the disease was first declared in Europe. But before the first case was detected in Peru in June,…
November, 2022
PAHO organizes three trips each year in Venezuela to bring vaccination and health services to 22 indigenous ethnic groups living deep in the tropical forests of Amazonas state, in the southernmost part of the country.