Summary/ Introduction

Focus Areas

 

There is a 2004-2007 Country Cooperative Strategy (CCS) for Guyana. The current work of the institution to achieve national health development may viewed within the following framework for implementing the Technical Cooperation Strategy:

• Facing New Challenges
• Protecting Achievements
• Addressing the Unfinished Agenda

 

• E.g. SARS

  Completely novel and crucial actions were taken by multiple players worldwide to respond to the outbreak of a new disease; including online sharing of scientific data with no regard to profit, the first ever issue of a WHO travel alert, early report of the spread of the epidemic and wide opening to the media and continuous sharing of reliable information on the course of the epidemic. Virus identified and diahnostic kit made available in record time Incidence reduced from an otherwise predicted total of 200,000 cases Since the discovery of HIV there have been 20 new communicable diseases identified

  Understanding and preparing for new health situations
• Building the capacity to anticipate and plan for managing them
• New diseases, therapies and determinants
• Paradigm shift from sure to optimal functioning (e.g. SARS, genetics and aging)
• Paradigm shift from health care to health determinants (e.g. obesity, environmental factors and poverty)
• Paradigm shift from health as a charitable offering to health as a right
• Optimizing resources from and expanded range of public health participants
• [more]

 

• 	E.g. Polio
  	The Region was certified Polio-free in 1991, and has achieved 13 years with no cases. In the last two years an outbreak in Nigeria has threatened re-introduction of wild poliomyletis to the Region. The Region has been kept safe from Polio by maintaining coverage rates and commitment to eradication.

  Ensuring our existing accomplishments are sustained, and are scaled to the whole of our region, and result in long-lived strengthening of national institutions
• Health gains are not necessarily cumulative and permanent, and must be managed and maintained
• Health gains may be reversed by lack of investment, natural events, population movement, war and other violence, disruption of the social fabric and new diseases and risks.
• [more]

 

• 	E.g. Maternal Mortality
  	Five countries in our Region have maternal mortality rates that one of our countries, the USA, overcame 60 years ago. The causes of the majority of these deaths are well known and understood. These deaths are avoidable through simple interventions.

  The diseases and health issues for which cost-effective solutions are widely available and almost universally applied
• Those areas that represent the fundamental, and unaddressed, health rights of our population
• Priority problems that are hidden behind the "tyranny of the averages"
• [more]