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Foreword
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
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Foreword I must say that I am deeply honored that Mme. Ellen Amster has asked me to write the foreword to her book about the history of the health system in Morocco. This extensively researched work is a veritable mine of information for us and for the generations to come. It constitutes, henceforth, the authoritative reference on the subject. It permits us to understand the evolution of the Moroccan health service, its strengths and its weaknesses, and its impact on the health of the population. In light of this past, and facing the contemporary challenges to health in Morocco today, what have we learned? It is this question that I wish to address in this foreword, by connecting the historical past of the Institut National d’Hygiène du Maroc with the transformations it has undergone over the past century, and finally linking it to the future reserved for it as the consolidator of public health in Morocco. the history of nearly a century of the institut national d’hygiène Inaugurated December 30, 1930, by the president of the Conseil Supérieur d’Hygiène de France, the Institut National d’Hygiène (INH) of Morocco has had from its inception the mission to address all problems of public health and hygiene, to monitor and control the propagation of transmissible diseases, and to provide information about the principles and methods of hygiene and prophylaxis to protect the health of the population of Morocco. Having contributed to the eradication of numerous epidemic diseases and to the control of numerous maladies, the INH has seen its mission evolve over nearly a century (eighty years) toward developing expertise, the scientific and technical application of medical and environmental sanitation programs, biomedical research, and monitoring health safety. consolidation of the system of public health and medicine in morocco In Morocco, the system of public health and medicine is characterized by its intersectorality. Its continuous development has permitted considerable x medicine and the saints advancement in epidemiological data collection and a mastery over the infectious diseases that threatened the health of the Moroccan population in the early twentieth century. More recently, Morocco has also been under threat from pandemics. The excellent responsiveness of the national health system to the threat of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, the threat of avian flu in 2005, and the pandemic of H1N1 flu in 2009 highlight the cooperative, coordinated, intersectoral action of the state in moments of crisis. At the same time, these were emergency responses to acute medical crises . Public health requires a permanent apparatus of sanitary protection and an enduring organization at the level of the state, one able to anticipate and react to future health crises efficiently. This absolute necessity reveals the current structural limits to meeting the potential health threats of the future. With these considerations in mind, the Ministry of Health in 2007 concluded that it was necessary to create a National Agency of Public Health and Medicine (Agence Nationale de Santé Publique). This agency was created through an institutional, organizational, and technical audit of the Institut National d’Hygiène (INH) and of the network of laboratories of the public health service. the project of the national agency of public health and medicine The project of the Agence Nationale de Santé Publique (ANSP) was realized within a larger project of the European Commission to support the process of institutional reform that Morocco had already begun. This was an occasion for the Ministry of Health, aided by experts, to develop a larger vision of the definition of health policy for Morocco. This new vision takes into account all evolutions of the health sector and permits Morocco to face new demands in public health, medicine, and health safety. The goal was to create a national office dedicated to public health and major public health problems on a national scale, led by a centralized leadership . The ANSP would provide global health data about the population, provide scientific and social data to evaluate public health policy, and decide the priorities and define the strategic orientations of health programs, all within the guidelines offered by international sanitary regulations. This organization will allow the compilation of a critical mass of profiles , of disciplines, of experiences, and of expertise, a combination necessary for more effective responses than the current system is able to offer. [44.204.217.37] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:01 GMT) foreword xi It will also permit us to capitalize on the gains...