PAHO DIRECTOR TO GIVE LECTURE AT SELA

Caracas, 4 April 2011- The Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), Dr. Mirta Roses, will pay a visit to Venezuela to meet President Hugo Chávez Frías and give a lecture in the headquarters of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), entitled “The impacts of the crisis on health: New courses of action”.

The Permanent Secretary of SELA, Ambassador José Rivera Banuet, will open the event. In her lecture, Dr. Roses will deal with the current situation in the health sector in the wake of the impact of the AH1N1 virus on the population at the global level.

The lecture -scheduled for Friday 15 April 2011, at 9:00 am- will be attended by representatives of SELA Member States, the diplomatic corps accredited to Venezuela, international and regional organizations, as well as officials and personalities related to the health sector.

Doctor Mirta Roses, born in Argentina, joined the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) in 1984 as coordinator of the Epidemiology Unit of the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC), in Trinidad and Tobago.

In 1986, Dr. Roses was transferred to Dominican Republic, as Advisor in Epidemiology, and from 1988 as PAHO/WHO Representative to the country. At the completion of her mission, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Central University of the East and Honorary Professorship by the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.

From July 1992 to January 1995 she served as the PAHO/WHO Representative to Bolivia, where she was awarded the Armed Forces Order of Marshal Santa Cruz, the Order of Bolivar the Liberator, and the Presidential Order of Public Health, and named an Honorary Professor by the University of San Andrés.

In 1995, she was appointed Assistant Director of PAHO, joining the World Health Organization’s Director Program Management Group and Global Program Management Group, which she presided over for two mandates.

In September 2002, Dr. Roses was elected Director of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau by the countries of the Hemisphere. She took office on 1 February 2003, becoming the first Argentine and first woman to hold that position in the world’s oldest health public agency, founded in 1902.

Dr. Roses has been the recipient of numerous honours -among them, honorary doctorates from the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, the Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University. She has also been awarded Ecuador’s National Order of Honorato Vásquez with the degree of High Official and Nicaragua’s Order of José de Marcoleta and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Order of Liberty.

During her stay in Caracas, Dr. Roses will hold meetings with the President of the Republic, the Minister of Health, Dr. Eugenia Sader, and other high-level government officials in Venezuela.

<