The New Regional Health Plan
July 28th, 2010 | 
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Health Plan of Extremadura, which is under preparation and will be in force from 2009 to 2012, envisages the creation of a Food Safety Agency of Extremadura, one of whose tasks will assess the possible risk situations caused by the consumption of spoiled food. The roadmap will also incorporate health extremeña the priority areas for action, among which is the struggle against the most prevalent diseases – cardiovascular diseases, cancer, mental health, etc. – other emerging and rare diseases those from the animal world or zoonoses.
This follows from the discussion paper of the new health plan, which will be finally adopted by the Board in early 2009 and have participated in the drafting of which about 300 experts, including those that are health professionals, patient associations, schools professional and scientific societies, which currently make contributions to the future plan.
Ensuring the safety of food consumed by citizens will be one of the tasks entrusted to the Food Safety Agency of Extremadura, which will be created with the rank of Law 2011. It will also coordinate all government actions, assess the potential risk and encourage research in food safety.
Its functions include the development of a protocol for risk communication and crisis food emergencies, like the recently caused by the contamination of milk products that killed several children and affected more than 50,000 babies in China. In Spain this type of situation, albeit on a smaller scale and with less harmful consequences, they lived in 2005 the case of pre-cooked roasted chickens from a multinational Netherlands, which affected more than 2,700 salmonella around the country.
TOOL
The Director General of Planning, Management and Coordination, José Luis Ferrer, he has led during 2008 the work of this paper – more than 400 pages – which analyzes the current state of health of Extremadura and specifies the line will follow the Extremadura public health system over the coming years. Ferrer said that the main virtue of this “tool” is that not only addresses the health personnel, but also involves other ministries and administrations.
The new health plan will follow up comprehensive plans to combat major health problems of Extremadura, which will join over 2009 new programs specifically for the treatment of rare diseases, which are those pathologies which know less than five cases per 10,000 inhabitants, with a risk of death or chronic disability, and the aggravation that are diseases for which there is a little information. We also include diseases from the animal world, and that the plan itself defines as “a serious public health problem with major health, economic and social.” These are diseases such as brucellosis, avian influenza, salmonellosis, rabies or Anisakis.