Pan American Health Organization | Organización Panamericana de la Salud

From the Zika epidemic and the birth of thousands of babies with congenital malformations, through the declaration of measles as eliminated from the American continent, 2016 was a year of serious challenges and important successes for health in the Americas.

In 2016, Zika virus spread rapidly throughout the Americas after its initial appearance in Brazil in May 2015. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) responded quickly, deploying over 80 expert missions to help its Member States respond to the epidemic and launching a new regional strategy to prevent and control mosquito-borne viruses, which threaten an estimated 500 million at-risk people in the region.

In 2016, 155 countries and territories from the Americas and around the world took a historic step towards the eradication of poliomyelitis. During two weeks in April, in a process coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), known as “the switch,” the health sector changed one type of polio vaccine for another.