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PAHO NEWS:  Press Releases, Job Vacancies, and Other
Information from the Pan American Health Organization
(PAHO) via the Canadian Society for International Health
(CSIH) http://www.csih.org; Technical Representative in
Canada for PAHO
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Brown Bag Lunch: Chagas Disease in the Region of the
Americas
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Monday, December 20, 12:00-13:30 hrs at the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA), 200 Promenade du
Portage, Hull, Quebec  (Room 550).

Chagas disease has a wide distribution in Central and
South America, being found only in the American
Hemisphere. It is endemic in 21 countries, with 16-18
million persons infected and 100 million people at risk.

The Health, Population and Nutrition Network of the
Americas Branch, CIDA cordially invites you to a
presentation on the situation of Chagas disease in the
Americas.

The guest speaker is Dr. Gabriel Schmunis, Coordinator of
the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO)
Communicable Disease Programme and one of the region's
leading experts in this area.

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PAHO Health Sector Reform Initiative Online Database
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As many of you are aware, PAHO's Division of Health
Systems and Services Development is co-financing and
implementing with the USAID a five-year project "Health
Sector Reform Initiative". The goal of the project is to
provide regional support to the national processes of
health sector reform, promoting more equitable access and
effective basic health services in the Region of Latin
America and the Caribbean.

One of the many activities of the project is the
development of an online database of Contacts in health
sector reform. After much work the database is finally
online and we invite you to take a look at it and take a
few moments to register as a member of this network.

This is a dynamic database that allows various types of
searches according to the desired information. It has
been an important step in connecting professionals who
are working in health sector reform and will allow the
exchange of knowledge and information in a fast and
efficient manner.

You may reach the database directly through
http://www.contacts.health-sector-reform.org or you may
also access this database through the project's
Clearinghouse web page
http://www.americas.health-sector-reform.org

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This document is available, with full formatting and
accents, at http://www.csih.org/paho_ndx.html