Disease Elimination Initiative - Stories

Caracas, 9 September 2019 (PAHO) – The Caño Fibra community is located along the banks of the Orinoco River in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. This remote area in the municipality of Atabapo, yet to see electricity, gas, or piped water services, is home to 15 families of the Piaroa, Jivi, and Puinave native ethnic groups. Enoc Navarro, his…
The Caño Fibra community is located on the banks of the Orinoco River. Fifteen families belonging to the Piaroa, Jivi and Puinave indigenous groups live there. Searching for trachoma in Venezuela, an opportunity to provide integrated health care (video in Spanish only).
Guatemala, July 2019 (PAHO/WHO) - When  Dr. Ana Patricia Vélez (62)  was diagnosed with hepatitis C more than 20 years ago, nucleic acid testing to diagnose the disease was not available in Guatemala and there was a major lack of awareness and painful stigma associated with its transmission. But Patricia, unlike many others, was able to…
"Lessons from the field: Documentation of the success of the the EPI in Jamaica." The video explores the sentiments of persons affected by vaccine preventable diseases as well as health care workers regarding the value of vaccination and the importance of the immunization programme in eliminating these diseases in Jamaica over the past 40 years.…
Has the boy ever had chucho?" asked Felipe Sanchez, a health worker in Salvador Mazza, Salta, to a boy’s mother who lay sick in her arms one day in 1987. The boy’s mother told Sanchez that she had taken her son to several hospitals, but that the fever had persisted. Even though he had only been working as a health worker for a short time, Sanchez…