CDC’s South America Regional Office

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The South America region covers the entire continent of South America. The region, which is home to approximately 427 million people, is served by the CDC South America regional office based in Brasilia, Brazil. The CDC regional office supports CDC staff placed in Argentina and Ecuador. In addition, CDC has one country office in the region (in Brazil).

CDC historically had a small footprint in South American countries in the region. However, through a variety of collaborations, CDC programs have made progress on public health issues including, but not limited to, Zika, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, influenza, vaccine-preventable disease, foodborne and waterborne diseases, and high consequence pathogens. Over the years, there has been major progress in the control of these threats. However recent issues, such as economic and humanitarian crises, have led to considerable challenges to public health systems across the region. In addition to personnel in the region, subject matter experts at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, GA, provide technical support to these offices, as well as to partners across the region.

Regional offices maps for SAM

Key Areas of Focus

The South America regional office’s activities reflect the agency-wide Global Health Strategy and are focused on responding to critical health threats in the region including:

  • Antimicrobial resistance
  • Border health and migrant health
  • Countering misinformation and disinformation
  • Emerging diseases, including respiratory, zoonotic and vector-borne disease
  • Humanitarian crises
  • Immunization systems and vaccine planning
  • One Health
  • Urbanization and habitat loss

By working with partners across South America to:

  • Provide early warning for health threats
  • Detect changes in disease patterns, including the emergence or re-emergence of pathogens
  • Modernize health information and disease surveillance systems
  • Use data for public health action
  • Build high quality laboratory systems
  • Upskill and expand the public health workforce
  • Respond effectively to public health emergencies
  • Prevent and control disease
Countries included in the region:
    • Argentina
    • Bolivia
    • Brazil
    • Chile
    • Colombia
    • Ecuador
    • French Guiana*
    • Guyana
    • Paraguay
    • Peru
    • Suriname
    • Uruguay
    • Venezuela

*Territory of France

Regional Goals

CDC and partners coordinate closely and work together on strategic areas that reflect the agency-wide Global Health Strategy and include coordinated partnerships, trained workforce, and prepared systems to achieve the following goals:

  • Goal 1: Enhance existing and develop new partnerships to improve regional health security
  • Goal 2: Enhance and expand the public health workforce
  • Goal 3: Ensure the ability of the region to effectively respond to public health emergencies
  • Goal 4: Support improvements of national public health institutions
  • Goal 5: Enhance use of data for the development of public health policy, strategies, guidelines, and recommendations
  • Goal 6: Strengthen surveillance systems to better understand disease trends and detect public health threats
  • Goal 7: Strengthen public health laboratories
  • Goal 8: Promote public health research to provide evidence for policy making and innovations in program implementation
  • Goal 9: Improve the ability to decrease prevalence of vaccine preventable diseases
  • Goal 10: Work towards the elimination of diseases of public health importance