Mesoamerica Health Initiative Technical Meeting Held in Carlos Slim Foundation
A technical meeting of the Mesoamerica Health Initiative was held in Carlos Slim Foundation (CSF) on November 8th 2016. The event was attended by members of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), who presented the projects’ progress and the development of technology behind the initiative.
The technical meeting included the participation of Emma Irate, Executive Secretary of the Mesoamerica Health Initiative; Ferdinando Regalia, IDB Chief of the Division of Social Protection and Health; Dr. Roberto Tapia Conyer , CSF General Director; Dr. Hector Gallardo Rincon, CSF Operational Solutions Director; and Miguel Betancourt Cravioto , CSF Global Solutions Director.
The Mesoamerica Health Initiative is a public-private partnership that aims to reduce health gaps in Mesoamerican. The partnership is composed of Carlos Slim Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of Spain, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the governments of the seven Central American countries plus the state of Chiapas, Mexico.
The Initiative’s objective is reducing specifically health gaps in maternal health, immunization and child nutrition, in the whole region.
So far the initiative has benefited nearly 1,000,000 women of reproductive age, and around 650,000 children under 5 years old.
Thanks to the Mesoamerica Health, 7 countries in Central America and the State of Chiapas have improved the availability of medical equipment for pregnancy care, trained health staff, drugs for delivery care, vaccines, and nutritional supplements for the proper development of children.
- In Belize, equipment for proper pregnancy care availability increased from 50 to 90 percent.
- In El Salvador, vaccine refrigerators availability augmented from 6 to 78.4 percent.
- In Honduras, zinc availability t manage diarrhea increased from 10 to 100 percent.
- In Chiapas, essential delivery care and newborn drugs availability increased from 30 to 97 percent.