Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela strengthen cooperation to fight infectious diseases in the Amazon region

Leticia, Colombia, 5 September 2025 (PAHO)- With a view to advancing the elimination of infectious diseases that affect vulnerable communities in the Amazon, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) organized a regional workshop on integrated action plans to combat trachoma, malaria, and Chagas disease in the Amazon with a cross-border and equity approach. The workshop was held in Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia, from 1 to 5 September, with the participation of Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela.

The meeting brought together 52 participants, including delegates from the national ministries of health, as well as local officials in charge of trachoma, malaria, and Chagas disease programs, delegates from the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI), and advisors from PAHO country offices and the regional office.

During the opening session, Héctor Coto, the PAHO regional advisor on Chagas disease, highlighted the challenge addressed by the meeting, which sought to promote integrated approaches to overcoming fragmented public health interventions. "This workshop is an absolutely unprecedented experience. Here we are going to take these grand intellectual constructs that are so fashionable now -- 'transversality,' 'comprehensiveness,' 'integration,' 'cross-border work,' 'equity' -- and we are going to take a direct approach to improving the use of resources in territorial interventions," he stressed.

For his part, Mauricio Barbosa, Secretary of Health of the Department of Amazonas in Colombia, highlighted the logistical difficulties in providing health care in very rural areas. "We have many Indigenous communities throughout the department that are 15, 17, or even 18 hours from urban centers. To bring health services to our population, transportation is by river and light aircraft," he explained.

During the workshop, participating countries worked on designing action plans for trachoma elimination, including prioritized border areas, using key information such as national surveys and population data to implement the SAFE (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, and Environmental improvement) strategy: Regarding measures to improve the quality of water, sanitation, and hygiene -- fundamental to preventing and eliminating trachoma -- the countries emphasized the need to pursue an aligned approach with actions appropriate to the customs and worldview of the populations served.

The workshop methodology included a cross-border analysis focused on three border zones. Strategic and operational plans were developed to address Chagas disease, malaria, and trachoma in two border areas between Brazil and Colombia, and a specific analysis was conducted for malaria and trachoma in a border area between Colombia and Venezuela.

The adoption of an integrated territorial approach to Chagas disease in the Amazon subregion represented progress in the search for strategies that address the specific challenges involved in controlling transmission in the subregion.

The joint analysis of the transmission dynamics in these border areas made it possible to identify priority actions and emphasized the need to expand access to malaria diagnosis and treatment in the affected communities, as well as coordinated surveillance and information exchange between countries.

The activities also included examining how well the equity approach was integrated into the different programs, with an analysis of the eight key components of the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) to ensure access to health services for the most vulnerable groups.

The workshop produced a proposal for an integrated approach to trachoma, malaria and Chagas disease in the Colombia-Brazil border areas and to trachoma and malaria in the Colombia-Venezuela border area.

This workshop is part of the Initiative for the Elimination of Trachoma in the Americas, a partnership between PAHO and the Government of Canada, and is part of the Disease Elimination Initiative, a regional policy that promotes an integrated, sustainable approach to accelerate progress towards elimination goals in the Americas.