Paudalho Experience
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, scientific expeditions by the Oswaldo Cruz Institute to the interior of the country sought to identify diseases. The expeditionary tradition expands a hundred years later, taking science, health, education and culture with a focus on action on diseases, aiming at combating poverty. Paudalho, in the interior of Pernambuco, received the pilot initiative.
At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, researchers left their laboratories to explore the cantons of Brazil, mapping and discovering diseases: this was the profile of the scientists at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute (IOC/Fiocruz) who participated in the famous Scientific Expeditions to describe the health situation in the interior of the country. Today, the challenge is different.
The perspective is to act on the current health scenario, which is different in each region, and which associates its biological determinants with the social determinants of health, such as income, education, housing, sanitation and others. The proposal for the project 'Science, education and culture for health and overcoming poverty', developed by the IOC adding several units of the Fiocruz, assumes precisely this objective.
The first stop, on a pilot basis, took place from the 23rd to the 27th of January, in the municipality of Paudalho, in the interior of Pernambuco.
The little more than 50 residents of the city participated in activities in the square, film sessions, workshops and an open-air exhibition. For 40 teachers, health agents and students from the locality, the summer course 'Health is what matters, illness is what sucks' addressed health issues.
The main focus is on diseases associated with poverty, such as schistosomiasis, tuberculosis, geohelminthosis, leprosy and filariasis. Combining health promotion with disease prevention implies knowledge, exchange of knowledge and application of knowledge. It implies local cultural changes, where schools, basic health units and cultural groups play a very relevant role.
Reaching this audience, disseminating and exchanging knowledge, raising awareness and mobilizing people is the main objective of the contemporary expeditions of Fiocruz, which will start in the Northeast and spread throughout the country, consolidating our partnership networks.
Partnerships
The initiative is part of the Brasil Sem Miséria Program, of the Federal Government, and has numerous partners: Ministry of Social Development, Government of the State of Pernambuco, Fiocruz Pernambuco, Fiocruz Brasilia, Fiocruz Minas, Fiocruz Bahia, Institute of Scientific and Technological Information in Health (Icict/Fiocruz) and Planning Board (Diplan/Fiocruz).
Bringing together so many partners was a natural result of the provocative role that the Institute assumes in the field of neglected diseases of poverty. The action in Paudalho was a real test of fire for the planned action format.
New version
The idea of resuming the expeditions of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute to the sertões of Brazil (1911-1913), when Carlos Chagas, Arthur Neiva, Belizário Penna and other scientists at the time described the health situation in deep corners, started from the identification of poverty as a problem that persists.
Brazil has already lifted 40 million people out of poverty and changed part of the main social determinants of communicable diseases. This, associated with health promotion and preventive and curative interventions, has already reduced the impact of infectious diseases on population mortality from more than 50% to less than 5%. However, 16,2 million Brazilians remain in extreme poverty.
Combating the infectious diseases of poverty is concentrated precisely in the locations where the poorest people are located, which is now the focus of the actions of the Brasil sem Miséria Plan.
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