THE PAN-AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION (PAHO):
Protecting health and defending the Americas for more than a century
About Friends of PAHO
A nonpartisan network of U.S. leaders making the case for continued U.S. engagement in the Pan American Health Organization
Call to Action
Add your voice. Sign the open letter calling on U.S. leaders to sustain engagement in PAHO—because the cost of disengagement is one America cannot afford.
Why PAHO, Why Now
The United States created PAHO. For 124 years, that investment has paid off. Here is why it still matters.
Disease doesn't stop at the border.
PAHO serves as the Western Hemisphere's infectious disease surveillance network, analyzing millions of signals annually, operating through 26 country offices, and issuing real-time alerts before threats reach American shores and farms. It is the early warning system the U.S. helped build and has relied on for nearly a century.
The threats are real—and growing.
H5N1 avian influenza is spreading in U.S. dairy herds. Dengue is advancing across the South. Chagas disease is now endemic in parts of the country. New World Screwworm was identified in the United States for the first time in six decades, while migration through the Darién Gap is carrying unfamiliar diseases northward. PAHO is at the center of monitoring and responding to all of it.
PAHO advances U.S economic and national security interests.
It protects American troops and diplomats stationed across the region, keeps markets open for U.S. farmers and businesses, and creates reliable demand through its pooled procurement mechanisms that benefit American manufacturers and suppliers. This is exactly the kind of practical, results-driven investment that does not get rebuilt quickly once it is gone.
Some problems can't be solved bilaterally.
When measles began spreading from Venezuela across the Americas in 2018—a country with no functional U.S. diplomatic relationship—there was no bilateral path to contain it. PAHO stepped in, vaccinated nearly 9 million children, and stopped the outbreak before it could spread further. No other institution could have done it.
124 years of results. The mission hasn't changed.
PAHO was founded in 1902 to protect American commerce and public health by controlling the spread of infectious disease in the hemisphere. U.S. engagement in PAHO is not foreign aid. It is homeland defense.