Chagas Disease and Primary Health Care in Brazil

Chagas disease is an important public health problem in various countries in Latin America [1] both due to the high number of people affected and the failure of endemic countries to adopt preventive and control measures, such that, today, it is one of the most neglected tropical diseases in the world, affecting about 6 to 7 million people [1].

The Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) – the national health service in Brazil – is structured in health care networks, which are organizations that serve a specific population associated with a particular territory, taking responsibility for their clinical outcomes, as well as financial and health aspects of this population [2]. The SUS was conceived under the commitments assumed in the International Conference about Primary Health Care (PHC) hosted by the World Health Organization in 1978 in Alma-Ata [3], which considered health as a fundamental human right and the most important social goal to be achieved in the world, and having PHC at the centre of health care networks.