PAN AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION

MEDIA ADVISORY

HEALTH SUMMIT OF MINISTERS STARTS MONDAY

WHAT: Top health authorities of the Americas meet at the Pan American Health
Organization starting Monday for a summit on the most important health
issues facing the continent.

WHO: Health Ministers from all countries of the Americas.

WHEN: The meeting starts Monday, Sept. 25 at 9:30 a.m. and runs through
Friday.

WHERE: PAHO Headquarters, 525 23rd Street, NW, at the corner of Virginia
Ave., 4 blocks south of Foggy Bottom Metro.

WHY: The meeting focuses on substantive issues including:

                Malaria: Of PAHO's 39 Member States, 21 have malaria
transmission. In these countries, 77 million people live in zones with
danger of malaria transmission, and some l.2 million cases of malaria are
reported each year. The Roll Back Malaria initiative seeks to create a
movement at the global, regional, national and local level to strengthen the
drive against this disease.

                AIDS in the Americas: Surveillance data show that the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Region is actually a mosaic of different epidemics.
In the region nearly 2.6 million people live with HIV, 1.3 million in Latin
America, 360,000 in the Caribbean and approximately 1 million in North
America. These figures continue to increase and estimates show that between
600 and 700 people are newly infected with HIV every day. More than half a
million people have died.

                Health situation and trends: In Latin America, the average
life expectancy at birth for the period 1995-1999 was 70 years, meeting the
goal set for the end of the century in the strategy of health for all by the
year 2000. There is, however, great diversity among the countries and within
each country. In the Region, the range of life expectancy is from 54.1 to
79.2 years, a difference of over 25 years among the countries at the two
extremes.

                Vaccines and immunization: In a report, PAHO points out
major progress achieved in 1999 by most countries in reducing the number of
cases of tetanus and advances in the initiative to eradicate measles.

                Other topics for the meeting include food protection, child
health, standards for pharmaceutical products, regulation of medical
equipment and devices, cardiovascular diseases, and other current health
issues and priorities for the Americas. PAHO Director Dr. George Alleyne
will present his annual report on the first day of the meeting.

PAHO:  The Pan American Health Organization, founded in 1902, works with all
the countries of the Americas to improve the health of their peoples. It
also serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health
Organization.

                For more information, please contact Daniel Epstein, PAHO
Office of Public Information
Tel. (202) 974-3459, fax (202) 974-3143, email: [log in to unmask]  Internet:
www.paho.org