Rio de Janeiro, Semptember 2014
www.isags-unasur.org www.facebook.com/isags.unasursalud www.twitter.com/isagsunasur
UNASUR secretary-general considers health an axis for social inclusion Ernesto Samper highlights the importance of actions to guarantee that the right to health is more than a mere philosophical postulate
PRENSA UNASUR
has contributed for the strengthening of democracy in the region. In this sense, the secretary has demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm with the 1st Citizen Participation Forum of UNASUR, which took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in August, 2014. Specifically with regard to the engagement with health, he affirmed that it is necessary to work so that the community can demand, monitor and get involved with the health systems they are entitled to. He added that “there is a close relation between citizen participation and the quality of health”.
The former Colombian president took over UNASUR’s general secretariat after Alí Rodríguez, who was in the charge of the bloc since 2012
On September 11, the former Colombian president Ernesto Samper assumed the position of Secretary-General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) for a two-year mandate. The ceremony, which took place at the Miraflores palace, in Caracas, Venezuela, counted with the presence of Samper’s predecessor, Alí Rodríguez Araque, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro and Desiré Bouterse, Surinam’s mandatary, representing the country that holds the Pro Tempore Presidency of the Bloc. During the ceremony, Samper reaffirmed his commitment with the maintenance of the South American region as an “oasis of peace” and presented his management strategy, which will be driven by a social, economic and political agenda. During an exclusive interview for the South American Institute of Government in Health (ISAGS), the new secretary highlighted the role of health as an important articulator on the social dimension of his agenda and declared that the idea of health as a fundamental right should continue to lead the discussions on the issue in South America. Samper also reinforced it that it is necessary to go further: “We should understand that health as a right is not a mere philosophical postulate. It
is necessary to develop prevention programs to boost the lead role of family doctors, to enhance the rural medical centres and to involve populations on healthcare systems of different levels”, he declared. While addressing the achievements of the region on the reduction of social inequities, the secretary pointed out the reduction of poverty and of child mortality and the extension of the access to basic health services. On the other hand, he mentioned that it is necessary to work on social determinants of health, to fight income inequality and the traditional “Latin American loopholes”, such as the dichotomy countryside-city, gender exclusion and the discrimination of ethnical minorities, which result in the restriction of the right to health.
“There is a close relation between citizen participation and the quality of health” Citizen participation and democracy According to Samper, the participation of the civil society in all social processes “is, gladly, an irreversible fact”, which
ISAGS On October 14 and 15, ISAGS’ Executive Director, José Gomes Temporão will be visiting Samper at UNASUR’s General Secretariat, in Quito, Ecuador. The secretary stated that the meeting will be important in order to move forward with some issues that are relevant for the South American integration in health and to enforce the motto of his mandate: “from theory to action”. In that sense, Samper mentioned, as an example of a promising initiative, the project of the drug price database of the South American countries, developed by ISAGS in collaboration with the Technical Group on Universal Access to Medicines of the South American Health Council. Ernesto Samper is the fourth secretarygeneral of UNASUR. He is graduated in Economy and Law, was the minister of Economic Development of Colombia from 1991 to 1992 and president of the country from 1994 to 1998.
Read the full interview at ISAGS’ website: www.isags-unasur.org
READ MORE RINC Management Collegiate Meeting in Colombia Page 2 UN General Assembly debates Post 2015 agenda Page 3 Interview with representative for UNASUR’s risk management Page 4
5 th Meeting of RINC’s Management Collegiate held in Bogota For the celebration of the 80th anniversary of Colombia’s National Cancer institute, the 5th Ordinary Meeting of the Management Collegiate of the Network of National Cancer Institutes (RINC/UNASUR) was held in Bogota, on September 26. The meeting aimed at the presentation of the updates on the network projects and at the envisioning of strategies for the objectives for 2015. RINC’s coordinator, Luiz Santini, opened the meeting and reinforced the role of the Network for the development of projects and actions for the prevention and control of cancer in the South American region and added that keeping this initiative alive and active is an achievement of the ministers of UNASUR’s Health Council. Among the issues addressed at the meeting, the highlights were the advancements of the Group for Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control through five priority axes: diagnosis, follow-up and treatment, monitoring systems, use of acetic acid on HPV tests and vaccination support. One of the initiatives of the Group is the implementation of cervical cancer screening using visual inspection with acetic acid and treatment with cryotherapy. In March 2015, Colombia’s National Cancer Institute and Peru’s National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases will hold a course for the capacity building of professionals of the South American region on the method of cancer detection using visual inspection.
RINC
Course for the detection of cervical cancer and the construction of a hub for cancer registry in the South American region were some of the issues addressed
RINC’s coordinator, Luiz Santini, welcomed the participants to the Meeting of the Network’s Management Collegiate
Another issue debated at the meeting was the progress on the construction of the Latin American hub for cancer registry, which will be hosted by Argentina’s National Cancer Institute, in Buenos Aires. The goal of the hub is to optimize cancer registry from population and hospitals in the region. The questions debated last year, regarding the establishment of the operative model and the selection of the coordination, were also discussed. Concerning the Biobank Operative Group, there is a meeting scheduled for November, in Ecuador. At the occasion, the challenges for the next years will be outlined, considering aspects such as the consolidation of the legal structure, the implementation of common management, besides communication tools and strategies.
The meeting also discussed the participation of the RINC on the seminar: “Women’s Cancer Initiative: A joint commitment to save lives”, promoted by the American Cancer Society and the Pan American Health Organization as a parallel event of the 69th United Nations General Assembly. The chief of the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases of Peru (INEN), Tatiane Vidaurre, represented the RINC and talked about the importance of awareness on the fight against women’s cancer, and highlighted the nomination of the first lady of Peru, Nadine Heredia, as leader and social advocate for cancer prevention and control in UNASUR: “Nadine has been boosting groundbreaking sanitary initiatives for cancer control that protect women and their families, especially for those in poverty conditions”, she declared.
Fiocruz and ALASAG inaugurated Global Health Center in Rio de Janeiro
ISAGS Collection
Group of academics intends to debate the main issues on global health in the American continent
Event gathered academics and other global health professionals at the auditorium of Uerj’s Social Medicine Institute
The Institute of Social Medicine of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (IMS/Uerj), in partnership with Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Latin American Alliance for Global Health (ALASAG) inaugurated, on September 18, the Rio Global Health Center. Created as an academic core for discussion and production of knowledge on the issue, the centre intends to work in partnership with other universities, for the strengthening of the theme internationally.
“It is an initiative of interdepartmental, interinstitutional and multidisciplinary action. We aim to put health at the core of the political debate again”, affirmed the IMS professor Eduardo Faerstein, which coordinated the creation of the Center. For the technical secretary of ALASAG, Giorgio Solimano, the centre will support the development of a Latin American identity in the field of global health. “The academic knowledge developed in North America and Europe does not promote structural analyses
of inequities. Latin America is being called to enrich this scenario, by bringing a perspective that privileges critical analyses and investigation on global health”, he defended. One of the goals of the centre is to outline the main international health problems and to propose strategies in order to mitigate them. In this sense, the director of Fiocruz Global Health Center and national coordinator of Brazil on the South American Health Council, Paulo Buss, helped with the definition of the present scenario in health. “The main current discussion concerns the health agenda on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The elevated poverty rates, the income concentration and the environmental crisis bring tragic consequences to the health of the populations and to the health systems of the States. We must seek, through multilateralism, the solutions that are most adequate to our reality as Southern countries”, he concluded.
Post-2015AgendaisthecentralissueoftheUNGeneralAssembly
HEALTH CONNECTION
South American Heads of State participate in debates about the new development agenda
SESSION OF PAHO’S DIRECTIVE COUNCIL From September 29 to October 3rd, the Directive Council of the Pan American Health Organization held its 53rd session. Some of the main issues debated at the meeting were the WHO reform, the international sanitary regulation and universal health coverage. In the October edition of ISAGS REPORT, there will be a special report on the subject.
6 9 th U N G e n e r a l A s s e m b l y g a t h e r s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s f o r 1 9 3 m e m b e r c o u n t r i e s o f t h e O r g a n i z a t i o n
Authorities from the 193 member countries of the United Nations participated in the Organization’s General Assembly, held from September 16 to October 7, in New York. This year, the assembly was aimed at the discussion about the accomplishment and the implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, whose central axes are reducing poverty and improving quality of life through sustainable and inclusive economic growth. In the opening speech, the president of the Assembly, Sam Kutesa, reinforced it that the new agenda must be addressed with a sense of urgency, hope and, above all, cooperation: “The world today is vastly different from what it was in 1945 [year of the creation of the United Nations], but one thing remains constant: the need to work together to harness opportunities for prosperity and to find solutions to the global challenges confronting humanity”, he declared. During the general debate of the Assembly, which started on September 24, authorities from the countries talked about the achievements of the MDGs and the challenges for the new agenda. The Brazilian president, Dilma Roussef, related how the country’s public policies have fought hunger and inequity and removed 36 million Brazilians from extreme poverty since 2003. Roussef also mentioned that it is necessary to have cooperation and technology transfer so that the countries with less relative development can reach the goals of the Post-2015 agenda.
The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, recognized the formulation of the agenda as “a unique situation with a great opportunity to transform development”. Peru’s mandatary, Ollanta Humala, shared the country’s experience on the achievement of the MDGs and added that “it is possible to reach substantial progress within a few years”. Chile’s president, Michele Bachelet, identified as challenges for the developing countries the fight against inequity, social cohesion, sustainable development and the quality of governance and security. Bachelet also affirmed that the empowerment of women and gender equality should be prioritized in the new agenda. Health in the Post-2015 The role of health in the new agenda has been widely debated among UNASUR countries. On the proposal presented in July by UN’s working group for the issue, health comes as one of the social dimensions envisaged through the themes of hunger eradication, the guarantee of healthy lives, the promotion of well-being for all at all ages, the access to water and sanitation. The first draft of the agenda will be debated until the High Level Meeting of the United Nations for the Post-2015, which will be held in June, 2015. The final document will be approved at the 70 th General Assembly, which will take place in September, next year.
On September 19, the World Health Organization closed the deadline for the submission of comments on the proposal for the Programme on International Nonproprietary Names (INN), for the inclusion of a qualifier that identifies biotherapeutic similar products. One of the reasons of the initiative is to establish a common scheme to avoid the proliferation of different names for similar or identical compounds.
TEMPORÃO PARTICIPATES IN EVENT IN PORTUGAL ISAGS’ executive director, José Gomes Temporão, participated in the event on the celebration of 35 years of the Portugal National Health Service, held in Lisbon on September 15. Temporão lectured on the conference “The costs of innovation in health: modernity or inevitability?”. Other authorities also took part in the event, such as the Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, the minister of Health of Portugal, Paulo Moita de Macedo and the general health director of the country, Francisco George, besides health professionals, academics and experts on the issue. More information about the INN at the web page: http://www.who.int/medicines/services/inn/en/
POVERTY AND THE IMPACT UPON HEALTH ISAGS’ consultant on the field of social determinants of health, Alessandra Ninis, was one of the lecturers of the seminar “Health and social-economic development in Angola”, held from September 23 to 26, in Luanda, capital city of the country. Ninis participated in the panel “Social determinants of health and sustainable development” and addressed the fight against poverty and its impact on health.
ISAGS Collection
United Nations
CONSULTATION ON QUALIFIERS FOR BIOSIMILARS
Authority from the Portuguese regulatory agency and Temporão
the preparation for appropriate responses. Climate change is affecting South America. Hence, the civil protection systems of each country should be engaged with it, and in a deeper way.
Interview: Raul Montoya Olivares
In continuation with the series of interviews with representatives for the structuring networks and technical groups of the South American Health Council (SHC), ISAGS REPORT talked to Raul Montoya Olivares, from the Network of Disaster Risk Management in Health. Montoya highlighted the greatest challenges on the management of health risks in the region, emphasized the role of the network for effective responses and reaffirmed the importance of ISAGS platform destined to SHC networks and groups. Which are the events with the greatest risk concerning health in South America? There are many events, depending on the country. There can be floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, among others. The health sector must be ready to respond as a leading actor and the experience with the disasters occurred in South America confirms it that health is a fundamental pillar in order to provide the community with an appropriate response. The earthquake that affected Chile in April reached 8.2 degrees on the Richter scale and killed seven people. Even though it was a tragedy, could we say that the event demonstrated that the Chilean population already has some sort of ‘seismic culture’, which enabled
ISAGS Collection
ISAGS’ website platform will be a strategic ally for the demands of the risk management network a quick evacuation and an effective response from the government? The seismic culture that Chile has been acquiring is based on the work that is being developed by the members of the Civil Protection System, headed by the National Emergency Office of the Ministry of Interior (ONEMI). Specifically in this event, one of the factors which prevented it from causing more deaths, was that there were previous earthquakes, which made it possible to the institutions to get prepared to face a potentially greater event. Therefore, this information record enabled them to be prepared before the earthquake, according to information provided by Chile Seismologic Center. Likewise, regional simulations that had been developed before also helped with the preparation of the population. What are the challenges regarding the floods, one of the most recurrent events of the South American region? The floods are events that can be forecasted up to a certain point and that are not as spontaneous as earthquakes. There are institutions that are in charge of monitoring and providing weather forecasts. Thus, one possible action is the reinforcement of contact between institutions, aiming at the provision of relevant information, which could trigger
How can UNASUR’s Network of Disaster Risk Management in Health collaborate with future responses and with cooperation between South American countries? Mainly by keeping the focal points active. Besides, it would be of great help if countries could inform which are their threats and needs, according to the experiences on their vicinities, so that the countries could know what a determined country needs in case of an event and how this assistance should be articulated. Maybe there could be some sort of simulation of help between countries, and a very detailed systematization of the aid process during an event, considering different events. ISAGS platform will be a strategic ally in order to connect the demands and the needs of the network.
Chile promotes journey about health emergency and disasters Chile’s Ministry of Health hosts, from October 28 to 30, the National Journey of Coordinators on Health Emergency and Disasters. ISAGS head of office, Mariana Faria, will talk about the importance of the Institute for disaster risk management in the South American region. Other issues will also be addressed at the event, such as risk management as a development indicator, the inclusive management of risk, besides coordinate management with primary healthcare.
facebook.com/isags.unasursalud Channel on Youtube: Isags Unasur twitter.com/isagsunasur
INSTITUTIONAL ISAGS-UNASUR Executive Director: José Gomes Temporão Head of Office: Mariana Faria Technical Coordinator: Henri Jouval INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Coordinator: Camilla Ibiapina ISAGS Report Editor: Mariana Moreno Report: Beatriz Nascimento and Mariana Moreno Team: Bruno Macabú, Felippe Amarante, Flávia Bueno and Nanci Miranda Contact: comunicacao@isags-unasur.org Phone: +55 21 2505 4400
This is the report from the South American Institute of Government in Health (ISAGS), the think tank on health of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) that aims to contribute to improving South America government quality in health by means of leadership training, knowledge management and technical support to health systems.