At the recent American Public Health Association (APHA) Meeting (held in New Orleans, in November, 2014), leaders of the American and Cuban public health associations signed an agreement to collaborate. With encouragement from WHO, PAHO, and the World Federation of Public Health Associations, Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of APHA, and C Alcides A Ochoa Alonso, President of the Sociedad Cubana de Salud Pública affixed their signatures.
Now that the USA plans to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, will the handshake between public health associations help the two governments cooperate? The focus now moves to an April, 2015 meeting in Havana, where everyone—the US and Cuban public health associations and public health leaders from every country in the Americas will be invited to help build hemispheric cooperation in public health.
Public health has overcome enmity in the past. Wars have been put on hold so that children could be immunised.1 Can cooperation between their public health associations encourage the US and Cuban Governments to work together?
I am Past President of the American Public Health Association, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Health Policy. I declare no conflicts of interest.
Tomado de The Lancet
