First US-Brazil Working Group on Public Health Meets

First row, center, Rosaly Correa-de-Araujo, M.D., M.Sc, Ph.D., Director of the Office of the Americas/OGHA and co-chair of the working group. In the back, second row, to the right of Correa-de-Araujo, is Minister Santiago Luis Bento Fernandez Alcazar, Special Advisor for Foreign Affairs on Health, Office of International Health, Ministry of Health of Brazil and Chair of the work group. Others in the picture are Brazilian and American officials.

June 19, 2007 - The first US-Brazil Working Group on Public Health (WGPH), formed under the aegis of the US-Brazil Joint Commission on Scientific Cooperation, met June 11-14, 2007 at Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia, Brazil.

Among numerous topics discussed, the group agreed on exploring new or enhanced programs in the following research and development areas:

• Collaboration on clinical research network capacity-building
• Establishment of a network of HIV/AIDS sentinel surveillance sites designed to monitor a concentrated epidemic
• Non-transmissible chronic diseases prevention through public health interventions
• Knowledge management, large data system utilization, geographic information systems, and facilitation on the implementation of research findings
• Public health training programs focused on surveillance, disease outbreak response, and the strengthening of public health infrastructure

Last revised: August 14, 2007