Since the Elimination Initiative launched, PAHO and Member States have documented challenges, lessons, and effective strategies. Sustaining progress requires a multifaceted approach.

PAHO's experience in disease elimination has yielded valuable insights into integrated strategies across health systems and services, surveillance and information systems, social and environmental determinants, and governance, stewardship, and financing.

The Elimination Initiative in the Americas faces complex challenges in achieving its disease-specific targets, including healthcare disparities, political and economic barriers, and inadequate surveillance. Progress towards Elimination Initiative targets can be measured by looking at incidence and prevalence, as well as examining the impact of existing disease control efforts and making projections about future disease progression.

As of 2022, significant disease burdens persist in the Region, including millions at risk for the 30+ diseases and conditions targeted by the Elimination Initiative. Progress towards elimination targets varies widely across diseases and countries. Seven diseases have been eliminated region-wide, including polio and several other vaccine-preventable diseases.

The Elimination Initiative is a comprehensive framework aimed at eliminating more than 30 communicable diseases and related conditions in the Americas by 2030.

Since PAHO’s founding in 1902, countries and territories in the Region have made significant progress toward disease elimination. This success provided a strong foundation for the Elimination Initiative, which launched in 2019.

The Pan American Health Organization's Health in the Americas initiative is an organizational effort lead by the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health (EIH) under the direction of Sebástian García Saisó, EIH Department Director, and coordinated by Adrienne Cox, Health Analysis and Equity Metrics Unit Chief in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) technical departments, PAHO/World Health Organization country offices, and Member States.

In 2019, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and Member States approved the Elimination Initiative, an ambitious, comprehensive, person-centered framework aimed at eliminating more than 30 communicable diseases and related conditions in the Americas by 2030.