Public Health World Conference Ends in Rio

Brasilia, Oct 21. -The World Conference on Social Health Markers (Cmdss) ends today with the adoption of the Declaration of Rio de Janeiro listing strategies to fight inequality in this field.Some 120 countries and international organizations discussed expertise for 72 hours to adopt guidelines helping rid assymmetries and barriers stalling universal access to health care.

Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales termed sustainable development nor health for all impossible with the political manipulation of human rights. They remain a mirage tied to selectivity, bias and double standards; if human, social and cultural rights are overrode, assured Morales.

On the Social Markers' Commission advice it is worth stressing on the need to fight health inequalities, whether tied to living standards, services and resource accessibility or social structure.

Paulo Buss, director of the Oswaldo Cruz Health Foundation (Friocruz), termed the huge gaps unacceptable for they can not be justified and are preventable in health care. As example, he mentioned contrasting infant mortality rates at 150 per 1,000 live births in Africa and below 10% in Europe.

He stressed that such differences will never depend on the children's anatomy or their DNA but on their social environment; plus, beyond rich and poor countries health care assymmetries extend to same border cities and neighborhoods.

In press meeting, Brazilian Health Minister Alexander Padilha committed to increase the current benznidazole output to meet current world demand to treat Chagas disease.

Padilha and Margaret Chan, director of the WHO, underlined the importance of the Cmdss which for the second time transfers its venue to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for its headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland, and the 1978 edition in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan. (Prensa Latina)