EUROPE/SWITZERLAND - Although 28% lower than ten years ago, the poverty rate in Republic di Guyana is still high particularly in rural areas, minister of health tells General Assembly of the World Health Organisation

Monday, 23 May 2005

Rome (Fides Service) - The annual assembly of the World Health Organisation WHO will close on 25 May. One of the emerging questions was the budget of the health ministry in the central American Republic of Guyana.
Recent floods which affected fifty percent of the population earlier this year highlighted the importance of international associations and the central role of the Pan-American Health Organisation (AHO) for the country, thanks to which it was possible to avoid a health crisis and to keep an outbreak of leptospirosis under control.
It emerged from a conference entitled “A country committed to action: the case of Guyana” presented to the WHO 58th ordinary assembly, that health expenditures have reached the sum of 55 dollars per person per year and that despite a 28% decrease compared to ten years ago the people are still poor, in particular in rural areas where 70% earns less that a dollar a day.
Guyana is one of five countries for which AHO has priorities objectives the other four being Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. The central American country has continual need of co-operation to fill in for the scarcity of health workers, to administer vaccines and anti-retroviral treatment to people with HIV/AIDS. The technical areas requiring most attention include chronic transmittable diseases such as diabetes and cancer, mother/child healthcare. (AP) (23/5/2005 Agenzia Fides; Righe:23; Parole:256)


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