Health of­fi­cials from the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) will join their coun­ter­parts from the Re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as in Wash­ing­ton D.C. next week, for the 62nd Di­rect­ing Coun­cil meet­ing of the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO).

The Di­rect­ing Coun­cil is one of PA­HO’s main gov­ern­ing bod­ies.

The event, which runs from Sep­tem­ber 29 to Oc­to­ber 3, will serve as a key plat­form to dis­cuss and adopt poli­cies and strate­gies that will de­fine re­gion­al health pri­or­i­ties for the com­ing years, strength­en­ing tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion among coun­tries.

PA­HO Di­rec­tor Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bosa, as well as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Al­bert Ramdin, and World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Dr. Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus, are ex­pect­ed to ad­dress the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Mon­day.

PA­HO said fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Dr. Bar­bosa will present his an­nu­al re­port, high­light­ing progress and chal­lenges in pub­lic health in the Amer­i­c­as, with a fo­cus on dis­ease elim­i­na­tion, emer­gency re­sponse, and strength­en­ing health sys­tem re­silience in the face of re­cent crises.

PA­HO notes that through­out the week, del­e­gates will re­view and dis­cuss sev­er­al crit­i­cal is­sues for the re­gion, in­clud­ing PA­HO’s new Strate­gic Plan 2026-2031, the bud­get for 2026-2027, as well as a pro­posed 2025-30 Ac­tion Plan on the pre­ven­tion and con­trol of non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), which are the lead­ing cause of death in the Amer­i­c­as.

PA­HO said a pol­i­cy to ex­pand eq­ui­table ac­cess to high-cost and high-priced health tech­nolo­gies, aimed at re­duc­ing the fi­nan­cial bur­den of treat­ment on gov­ern­ments and pa­tients al­so will be in fo­cus.

It said a new Strat­e­gy on Health and Mi­gra­tion 2026-2031—to im­prove ac­cess to health ser­vices for mi­grants, strength­en da­ta and sur­veil­lance sys­tems, and pro­mote bet­ter in­te­gra­tion with­in the con­text of in­creas­ing re­gion­al mo­bil­i­ty—al­so will be among agen­da items.

Del­e­gates al­so will re­view fi­nal re­ports on the Strat­e­gy for the Pre­ven­tion and Con­trol of NCDs, Health and Mi­gra­tion, and the Pol­i­cy on Re­search for Health, as well as progress re­ports on in­creas­ing the pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty for es­sen­tial med­i­cines and tech­nolo­gies, co­op­er­a­tion for health de­vel­op­ment, and im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Sus­tain­able Health Agen­da for the Amer­i­c­as 2018-2030, among oth­ers.

The meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton D.C. al­so co­in­cides with the launch of the the Re­port of the World Bank-PA­HO Lancet Amer­i­c­as Com­mis­sion on Pri­ma­ry Health Care and Re­silience in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, as well as the PA­HO Award for Health Ser­vices Man­age­ment and Lead­er­ship 2025. —WASH­ING­TON, D.C. (CMC)