The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) says there is an ur­gent need to strength­en pub­lic health ca­pac­i­ties in the in­sti­tu­tions of the re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as to en­sure uni­ver­sal ac­cess to health and re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to cur­rent and fu­ture health chal­lenges.

PA­HO has pre­sent­ed its ”Im­ple­men­ta­tion of the es­sen­tial health func­tions in the Amer­i­c­as” Eval­u­a­tion and Strength­en­ing of ca­pac­i­ties” re­port based on eval­u­a­tions con­duct­ed be­tween 2021 and 2023 in 14 coun­tries of the Amer­i­c­as.

Sev­er­al Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM)  coun­tries, name­ly An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, The Ba­hamas, Be­lize, Ja­maica, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lu­cia, and Suri­name, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the eval­u­a­tions.