Investment, Innovation, and Implementation Key to Ensuring Primary Health Care-Based ...

"We have just been subjected to one of the most devastating events in global public health in the last century," saysJarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization.

"I cannot think of a better moment for us to take collective action."

Barbosa spoke Thursday at the Primary Care International Conference in Washington, DC, calling for countries in the region to develop and implement primary health care-based systems that consider the changing epidemiological contexts and population needs of the 21st century, per a press release from the WHO.

"Our health systems were simply not prepared for the pandemic," he said.

Barbosa said primary health care is key to reversing pandemic trends in maternal and child rates, increasing vaccination coverage, accelerating the elimination of communicable diseases such as HIV, TB, and malaria, and expanding access to health services for the control and prevention of non-communicable chronic diseases and mental health.

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