[afro-nets] Alma Ata and PHC in 2008

The declaration of Alma Ata still relevant to primary health care!

Gillam S: British Medical Journal 336:536-538, 8 March 2008
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7643/536

After years of relative neglect, the World Health Organization has recently given strategic prominence to the development of primary health care. This year sees the 30th anniversary of the declaration of Alma Ata. Primary health care 'based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible through people's full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford' was to be the key to delivering health for all by the year 2000.

Primary health care in this context includes both primary medical care and activities tackling the social determinants of ill health.

PHM hopes this WHO prominence will result in recommendations that will respect the views of civil society.