Brazilian government creates health plan to eliminate infectious diseases

The Brazilian Government presented this Wednesday a plan to eliminate or reduce 14 diseases and infections that most intensely affect populations in situations of greater social vulnerability, the so-called socially determined diseases.

Dubbed “Healthy Brazil”, the plan was signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, and was published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette of the Union.

Data from the Ministry of Health show that, between 2017 and 2021, socially determined diseases were responsible for the death of more than 59,000 people in Brazil. The objective is to eliminate malaria, Chagas disease, trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis and geohelminthiasis, as well as vertically transmitted infections such as syphilis, hepatitis B, HIV and HTLV.

The program also seeks to reduce the transmission of tuberculosis, leprosy, viral hepatitis and HIV/AIDS.

The federal government expects that the most socially vulnerable groups are less at risk of getting sick and that people affected by the diseases and infections covered by the program can receive appropriate treatment, at a lower cost and with better results.

Mazo News Team