Enfoque: Las Americas – The Health of a Continent

This Enfoque program opens with children eagerly sharing their dreams for the future — a space pilot, a doctor, a nurse like her mother, a professor. Their ambitions—carpenters, actresses, soldiers, parents—reflect our universal longing for purpose and happiness. Our smiles at their answers express a hope that their dreams will come true.

From his studio, host Patricio Bañados surveys the health challenges facing Latin America at the midpoint of the twentieth century. Malaria and diarrheal diseases were widespread, causing many deaths, especially among children. In 1970, Latin American countries worked to lower the high infant mortality rate—128 deaths per 1,000 live births—by tackling infectious diseases, poor sanitation, malnutrition, and limited access to clean water and healthcare, particularly in rural areas. 

Early in the program, we meet “Jorge,” filmed moments after his birth in a Quito hospital. He becomes the “poster boy” for the film. The region’s success in eliminating diseases threatening this newborn, improving his nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions will determine his chances to grow into a healthy and productive adult. 

Through interviews with health officials by correspondents Edison Teran (Ecuador), Otto Greiffestein (Colombia), Hilton Gomez (Brazil), Raul Vargas (Peru), and Edmundo Sanders (Argentina), we learn of efforts to abate life-threatening diseases. These reporters explore factors shaping life expectancy and health across the region. Our cameras cover the 1977 meeting of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), with heads of state from 27 countries. Abraham Horwitz, Director of the Pan American Health and Education Foundation (PAHEF), lists the gravest health challenges facing the region. 

The program weaves reports showing countries working together to fight disease, improve sanitation, increase potable water, and mobilize medical teams for marginalized communities. We join mothers preparing for childbirth and learning proper infant care. In Peru, we board floating clinics on Amazonian rivers delivering medical care to remote communities. We visit the laboratories of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in Brazil, where vaccines are developed and shipped continent-wide to combat epidemics. At the Anglo American Clinic in Lima, scientists develop food supplements to improve nutrition. 

Produced with assistance from PAHO and in collaboration with the Organization of American States (OAS), the program ends by highlighting the commitment and energy of nations to reduce disease and untimely death through innovative strategies and hemispheric cooperation.

By the program’s finish, we learn what it will take to ensure Jorge’s survival.

Credits for “The Health of a Continent” can be accessed here.

To watch the film with English subtitles, click the CC button on the YouTube video, then go to Settings (gear icon) → Subtitles/CC → Auto-translate → English.