IDENTIFY GAPS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPLEMENTING PILLAR 2 (DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT)
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) to advance the global road map for defeating meningitis by 2030 for the Caribbean and Latin America.
In an effort to achieve this, a Defeating Meningitis Caribbean Sub-Regional Workshop was held at the Harbor Club in Saint Lucia providing representatives from ten Caribbean countries with a platform to identify gaps and opportunities for implementing Pillar 2 (Diagnosis and Treatment) and Pillar 4 (Care for People Affected by Meningitis). two of the core strategies outlined in PAHO’s regional meningitis action plan.
The workshop provided an avenue for representatives from the various countries to recognize and identify key activities that can implemented under the two pillars and be incorporated into the national meningitis action plan.
Dr. Tarun Dua, Unit Head for the Department of Mental Health, Brain Health, and Substance Use at the World Health Organization, highlighted the global impact of meningitis, stressing the urgency of prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment while outlining WHO’s Defeating Meningitis by 2030 road map to significantly reduce cases, deaths, and disabilities caused by the disease.
“So meningitis is a devastating infection of the brain it can happen to anyone anywhere and it can happen in children it can happen in elderly and if you look at the numbers there are 2.5 million new cases every year. 1 in 6 people is going to die because of meningitis and 1 in 5 is going to have a lasting consequences and much can be done to prevent meningitis, provide early diagnosis and early treatment and prevent these deaths, prevent these disabilities and therefore a defeating meningitis by 2030 road map has been developed by WHO and endorsed approved by all member states in the world to defeat meningitis. Which means that eliminating the epidemics that happen due to meningitis, decreasing cases by 50 percent and reducing deaths by 70 percent and decreasing the disability, improving the quality of life of people living with meningitis.”
Dr. Claudina Elington Cayetano, Advisor on Mental Health for PAHO, noted that the workshop aims to support countries in developing protocols and building competencies for effective disease management.
“Before the workshop we were able to do a pre-survey questionnaire to look at what are the challenges and a lot of the challenges had to do with training of healthcare providers so they can do early detection, developing protocols for management, how do you manage meningitis especially when it comes to integrating into primary care and of course looking into laboratory testing, the capabilities that the lab have for testing, importantly it’s to also understand if diagnosis for meningitis is done by lumbar punctures so we want to make sure if this is something that’s also being done if not we want to be able to provide support to countries in how to develop this protocols and how to do the training so that health care providers have the competencies required to manage meningitis.”
During her address the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar-George highlighted the significant impact of meningitis in Saint Lucia and underscored the importance of a holistic approach to health management, noting the strain on hospital resources and the relevance of PAHO’s multi-pillar strategy.
“I noted that during the period of 2007 to 2023 the majority of our cases which we see before zero to four years was already 85 out 174 which made up for 49 percent of the cases and it really showed us the importance of the holistic approach of managing health. This is an illness where we see quite a few of admissions and for us trying to manage health systems within the region, one of the issues we have is our human resources and also our bed space at the hospital and the approach taken by PAHO looking at all the pillars and I note when I went through the agenda for the three days it’s definitely the approach that needs to be taken.”
This workshop reflects PAHO’s commitment to fostering regional collaboration and supporting member states in their efforts to protect populations from preventable diseases. As countries work towards advancing these priorities, the outcomes of the workshop are expected to contribute significantly to the global fight against meningitis.
Representatives from the Caribbean and Latin America participated in the workshop from November 18th to 20th.