BORDER HEALTH
by Ana María Ruiz-Brown, Staff Writer - Translator


Women's Health Promoted

Chihuahua State Health Services organized a series of events to promote health among women in the first week of March. "The State Week to Promote Women's Health," as it was called, would be celebrated annually, according to El Diario.


Special activities, informative talks, workshops, and brochures were given away to encourage women to have breast screenings and pap smear tests in different Juárez health centers. Early detection prevents cancer, Patricia Ulate, representative for the State Health Services, explained.


Chihuahua State reported 250 deaths for cervical cancer cases in 1997. A hundred and seventeen of those women were from Juárez, explained Ulate.

The vast majority of deaths occurred to women older than 45 years old, according to Ulate. From the 250 total deaths, cancer of the cervix caused 150, 74 of those cases registered in Juárez. A hundred died because of breast cancer, 43 of those reported in Juárez, added Ulate.

A new booklet to follow women's smears tests and breast screening was introduced for the first time in México's public health history, according to María Eugenia Galván Antillón, director of the Social Development Office (Fomento Social).

They distributed the first 234 booklets during March, through Health Centers in the state. Women older than 45 who are pregnant will have received the health booklet in their first doctor's appointment date, Galván said.

Early detection and prevention measures of cervix and breast cancers are priorities of the State Government, said the director. Galván exhorted women in fertile age to have a smear test done annually to detect on time any abnormal cells in the cervix.

Cervix cancer is the most frequent cancer in Mexican women, said Rebeca Salas, supervisor of the department of Reproductive Health, in the Health Center. A safe way to learn about it is through smear tests, she said.

"Unfortunately in México, women do not like to have practiced the smear test because they are afraid to know that they have cancer." Women who have been victims of cervix cancer are not only homemakers, but also professional women, Salas commented.

The smear test is free of charge and it can be done in any health unit or hospital, said the doctor.

During 1997, 286 cases of cervical cancer were reported through the Health Center Office, according to El Diario.

Source: El Diario



More Hepatitis Cases in Schools


Ten schools in Juárez reported a total of 35 cases of hepatitis up to early March 1998, compared with 56 registered cases during the same period in 1997, according to the Secretariat of Health.

Some preventive measures have been taking place in schools, said local secretariat official José Luis Carreón Armendáriz.

They were forming health committees among parents to carry out health measures, Armendariz said.

"The cases are under control because children received medical attention and stay home," said the health promoter.

In the school "Antonio Caso," children from the second grade got sick during the first days of February, said Ivonne Rascón Erives, school director.

Personnel from the Health Secretariat have organized meetings to inform and orient parents about the illness, she said. They also talked about personal hygiene and how to prevent the illness, according to Rascón Erives.

On the other hand, current cases of hepatitis were less than those in years before, said Ivonne Flores, head of Sanitary Jurisdiction II.

Flores also confirmed that they already attended all the calls from schools with hepatitis cases. Health authorities checked the schools' sanitary conditions, and gave orientation talks to parents, Flores said.

She attributed the alarm over hepatitis cases to the unfortunate death of a minor who experienced complications with the illness during the first months of 1998, she said.

Health inspectors most of the problems in the restrooms of the schools they visited, according to Flores.

However, hepatitis is not only transmitted in school, but also with water or food poisoned eaten in streets, the Flores explained.

A case was also reported in the Juárez prison, Cereso, this month. Prisoner José Luis del Val Soto committed suicide on March 25, according to El Diario. Del Val Soto was completely isolated because he had contracted hepatitis and was under treatment, the paper said.

Source: El Diario

High Consumption of Narcotics along Border

Rates of drug addiction in the border have increased considerably, in fact the border recorded the highest rates of drug consumption in all Mexico, according to a study by the College of Psychiatrists of Chihuahua.

Strong drugs like heroin and cocaine are used as antidepressants, the study said, according to El Diario. Most commonly used and frequently mentioned are inhalants, with methamphetamines and other stimulants second, according to the study.

Drug-addicted women asked for help more frequently than men at a rate of five to two, the study showed. In contrast, 27 percent of men looked for support compared to 2 percent of women.

Several participants got together to focus their attention on reducing the demand for illegal drugs along the border during a binational drug summit in El Paso March 19-20.

Although drug use in Mexico is not as big a problem as in the United States, it is increasing at an alarming rate, a Mexican federal official told the summit. A recent survey showed that in 1997 the population between 12 and 65 in Mexico who had used illegal drugs "at some time during their lives" numbered 3.8 percent, or 2,300,000 people, Dr. Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexican Minister of Health, said at the conference.

Through a telephone interview from Dallas, retired Drug Enforcement Administration official Phil Jordan, commented that the drug summit's aim on reducing the demand for drugs "is a step in the right direction," the El Paso Times published.

Mexican and American officials agreed that the conference is a good strategy for the two countries instead of blaming each other for the drug problem in the border, according to the Times.

Sources: El Diario, El Paso Times.