Health

The U.S. Embassy continues providing Costa Rica with humanitarian assistance, including, for example, this 2010 construction of a new clinic in the village of Bambú, Talamanca

The visit of the U.S. navy hospital ship Comfort on its mission Continuing Promise (CP) 2011 increased U.S.-Costa Rica cooperation in humanitarian relief and emergency preparedness. Hundreds of residents of Puntarenas received medical and other services

U.S. government assistance in expanding supplies of clean drinking water was perhaps its greatest contribution to improving the health of Costa Ricans, for whom waterborne diseases were a leading cause of illness and death. However, the U.S. also contributed to improving public health in many other important ways.

Hospitals and clinics. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. government collaborated in the design, remodeling, construction or equipping of clinics and hospitals throughout the country. Most important was its help in building the National Children’s Hospital in San José after a polio outbreak in the mid-1950s.

Rural medicine. USAID supported an innovative program by the Health Ministry to bring health care to the Costa Rican countryside by providing support for mobile health units. In the 1960s, this program reached more than 80 towns and villages, and treated more than 350,000 patients.

Malaria eradication. Together with Costa Rica’s Health Ministry and the Pan-American Health Organization, USAID supported a program that virtually eradicated malaria in Costa Rica’s lowlands during the 1960s and ’70s. The program included the elimination of mosquito breeding grounds, fumigation, the establishment of special clinics in affected areas and education.

University of Costa Rica Medical School. Before the 1960s, medical students had to leave Costa Rica to receive a degree. In 1961, the University of Costa Rica established its own medical school, made possible by a grant from USAID which covered the costs of a contract with Louisiana State University to organize the new medical school, train its faculty and help train the first students.

Family planning and reproductive health. In the 1960s, Costa Rica had one of the highest rates of population growth in the world, with the average woman giving birth to seven children. This threatened to increase poverty rates and posed a daunting challenge for the country’s leaders and development planners. Costa Rica’s response was to implement one of the world’s first family planning and education campaigns. USAID supported this effort through financial assistance
to the government as well as grants for NGOs involved in the program.

Humanitarian assistance. Financial and logistical assistance in response o natural disasters, plus training and capacity building for disaster preparedness and visits by U.S. Navy hospital ships are ways in which the U.S. continues to provide vital assistance to Costa Rica and thousands of its citizens.