Health in Haiti 2007 : Public Health Services
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Excerpt from The Pan American Health Organisation, released report “Health in the Americas 2007” in which they exposed the health situation in Haiti.
The Ministry of Public Health and Population relies on the primary health care strategy to attend to the health needs of the
population.Care is delivered through a basic package of services, including child, adolescent, and women’s health; emergency
medical and surgical care; communicable disease control; health education; environmental health; and provision of drinking
water and essential drugs. The provision of this basic package is still experimental, and limitations in national health programs
prevent them from providing maximum coverage.
Priority is given to programs to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis; these programs receive support from financial institutions
working in the health sector. In addition, networks of NGOs and public and private health services have been developed to ensure
better compliance with the strategies and activities in effect. These networks are too incipient to guarantee an effective national
coverage, however.With regard to AIDS prevention, public private cooperation with NGOs is under way in aspects that range
from the implementation of five-year plans to serological sentinel surveillance and the prevention of perinatal transmission.As a result of a lack of organization and the absence of a performance evaluation system, the Expanded Program on Immunization was
unable to prevent the accumulation of a large number of susceptibles, which was associated with a 2001 measles epidemic.
Since 1991, the Ministry of Public Health and Population has conducted epidemiological surveillance of HIV. Four sentinel
studies of pregnant women yielded prevalence rates of 6.2% in 1993, 5.9% in 1996, 4.5% in 2000, and 3.1% in 2004. The decline
in the prevalence rates over the last decade does not necessarily mean that the risk itself has decreased. It is also noted that the
percentage of women under 20 years of age infected with the virus rose between 1996 and 2004.
A lymphatic filariasis program has demonstrated that it is possible to meet the regional objective of eliminating lymphatic
filariasis by the year 2010.
In 2004 and 2005, two joint vaccination campaigns to combat canine rabies were carried out by the Ministry of Health and the
Ministry of Agriculture. Some 100,000 dogs and cats were vaccinated in the capital, the Ouest department, and part of the Central Plateau, where the alert had been sounded. (Brazil offered 5,000 doses of the vaccine and PAHO/WHO furnished the logistics.)
The Ministry of Agriculture has sponsored vaccination efforts against anthrax, although activities have been sporadic and have
had little community participation. In 2004–2005, nearly one million animals were vaccinated against anthrax (FAO financing,
implementation by VETERIMED).
In 2005, a national public health laboratory was built. It began functioning in 2006, albeit with insufficient physical resources or
skilled human resources. Two pilot initiatives for sustainable development were launched in Port Salut and Aquin; public sanitation and solid waste disposal systems were developed in the two communes, benefiting some 250,000 people. In the Lison neighborhood in north Port-au- Prince, a public sanitation and storm drainage system was constructed.
The Ministry of Public Health and Population now has a Bureau for Health Promotion and Environmental Protection.
To improve sewage disposal, a project was initiated in 2005– 2006, which provides technical and financial assistance to the
community for building latrines.
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