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PUBLICA HEALTH Law 26.281 Define yourself to national interest and as a matter of priority, within the national health policy of the Ministry of Health, to the prevention and control of all forms of transmission of Chagas disease, until its final eradication of the entire national territory. Sanctioned: August 8, 2007 Cast: September 4, 2007

The Senate and Chamber of Deputies

of the Argentine Nation gathered

in Congress, etc.

forcefully sanctioned

Law:

ARTICLE 1 Deploy national interest and thus be a priority, within the national health policy of the Ministry of Health, and within the framework of the primary health care strategy, to the prevention and control of all forms of transmission of Chagas disease, until its final eradication of the entire national territory.

ARTICLE 2 For the purposes of this Act, the Executive Branch must develop interventions to provide preventive and treatment responses of an environmental, labour, health, education and housing and healthy habitat. To do this you must:

(a) Formulate the technical standards applicable throughout the country, for the development, implementation, evaluation and control of direct and indirect action programmes, such as prevention of the disease, as well as detection of acute patients, treatment and monitoring thereof, aimed at annual targets under a five-year plan;

(b) Identify methods and techniques for appropriate clinical and laboratory checks;

(c) Coordinate and monitor the annual provincial and Autonomous City of Buenos Aires programmes for the control and monitoring of this endemic;

(d) Provide technical collaboration and financial assistance to the other health authorities in the country for the formulation or development of programmes;

(e) To engage with endemic countries, whether or not, technical cooperation programmes in order to contribute to the control of this endemic in the region;

(f) To adjust the necessary measures and coordinate actions with local health systems and with occupational risk insurers, to optimize the diagnosis and follow-up of those infected by the Trypanosoma Cruzi;

(g) Develop and sponsor specific health education, research and ongoing training activities, which promotes:

1. Training programmes on Chagas disease for members of provincial health teams and medical services of occupational risk insurers;

2. Deploy ongoing health education in mass media and educational institutions. In the labour spheres, preventive work will be coordinated with occupational risk insurers.

(h) Manage the arbit of the necessary economic resources, during each fiscal year, for the financing of the programmes to be determined;

(i) To seek the inclusion in the school curriculum in a transversal and permanent form of an educational, updated and compulsory program on Chagas disease, its transmission and prevention measures;

(j) To promote the maximum development of research institutes in Chagas, such as the National Institute of Parasitology "Doctor Mario Fatala Chaben", Instituto de Patología Experimental de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud de la Universidad Nacional de Salta, Centros de Investigación Científica y de Transfer Tecnológica de La Rioja (CRILAR) and other institutes to incorporate, prioritizing those that demonstrate greater evidence of work and results in this field;

(k) Provide medicines to negativize the disease, in cases that are not considered as a professional disease;

(l) Establish a national information system in real time, agile, computerized and in line with the current needs, which allows the monitoring of the goals of this law.

Article 3 Owners, directors, managers, administrators or responsible, for any title, entities, companies, or urban or rural establishments of industrial, commercial, sports, artistic, educational, or other purpose, as well as owners, tenants or occupants of property dedicated to housing, must:

(a) To comply with and enforce the provisions on environmental sanitation and vector treatment, which the competent health authority establishes under this Act;

(b) Facilitate the access of competent health authority to any effect related to compliance with this Act;

(c) Adequate existing and future buildings with respect to the cultural particularities of each area of the country, in accordance with the rules established by the competent authorities in the field of housing, environment and health.

ARTICLE 4 It is mandatory to carry out and notify the diagnostic tests established under the Technical Standards of the Ministry of Health, in all pregnant women, in newborns, children of infected mothers, up to the first year of life and in the rest of the children, minors of CATORCE (14) years of the same mothers and, in general, in children when the SEIS (6) and DOCE (12) years of age, as established by the implementing authority.

Seological controls are mandatory in donors and recipients of organs, tissues and blood to transfuse. The analyses should be carried out by public and private health facilities throughout the national territory, according to technical standards of diagnosis of the Ministry of Health.

In no case can the results of the examinations performed constitute a restrictive element for admission to educational establishments and courses of study. Reactive serology is only considered for the preventive and treatment purposes established by this law, and Law No. 25,326 on the protection of personal data must be enforced.

ARTICLE 5o Serologic reactions were forbidden to determine the chagas infection to applicants for any type of employment or activity.

ARTICLE 6 Acts which, using information obtained by the application of this Act and the supplementary rules that are determined accordingly, involve an injury or impairment of the rights of persons affected by the Chagas infection, are regarded as discriminatory acts under Act No. 23.592.

ARTICLE 7 Official health establishments must do without charge, the examinations referred to in Article 4 or the specific antiparasitic treatment, avoiding any delaying action.

Social security establishments and prepaid medical institutions must recognize in their coverage the diagnostic tests and treatment of the disease.

ARTICLE 8 The results of the examinations set out in Article 4 are recorded in an official certificate of uniform characteristics throughout the country that must establish the national health authority and be delivered without charge to the assisted or controlled person. In cases considered to be a professional disease will be delivered by the job risk insurer.

Article 9 Blood banks, human tissues, hemotherapy services, and public or private establishments of any denomination, legally authorized to extract or transfuse human blood or its components, to perform tissue grafts and to perform organ transplants, must perform the necessary tests established by the national health authority in the relevant resolutions, and observe the necessary precautions to avoid any possibility of transmitting Chagas disease.

In the event of detection of reactive serology in a givenr, the competent health authority should be contacted and the affected person should be informed in an understandable manner and should be directed to appropriate treatment.

ARTICLE 10. Any possible givenr of blood or tissue or organ that has knowledge or suspicion of suffering or having suffered a Chagas infection must inform him of the service to which he is present.

ARTICLE 11. Authorize the Executive Branch to establish the sanctions regime for violations of this law, which consist of the receipt, suspension, closure or fine of QUINCE MIL PESOS ($ 15,000) up to CIEN MIL PESOS ($ 100,000), and apply independently of the civil or criminal liability that may correspond.

ARTICLE 12. Default of Act No. 22,360 and its corresponding regulatory decree, the Ministry of Health must make the necessary corrections in the programme to be established in accordance with this Act.

ARTICLE 13. The expenses that demand compliance with the provisions of this law shall be met with the resources that it entails, to that end, the general budget law of the public administration for Jurisdiction 80 - Ministry of Health - Programme 20 - Prevention and Control of Diseases and Specific Risks.

Authorize the national executive branch to make the necessary budgetary adjustments for the implementation of this law, during the entry into force of this law.

ARTICLE 14. The criteria and parameters for the distribution of the resources of the National Fund for the Eradication of Chagas Disease (Foneecha) between the provincial jurisdictions, as well as the procedural issues inherent in the management of Chagas Disease, will be agreed within the framework of the Federal Health Council.

ARTICLE 15. The provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires are invited to join this law.

ARTICLE 16. This law shall enter into force the NOVTA (90) days of its publication, within which the Executive Power shall regulate it.

ARTICLE 17. Contact the Executive.

IN THE SESSION OF THE ARGENTINE CONGRESS, IN GOOD AIRES, TO THE DAYS OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST OF THE YEAR.

# 26,281

ALBERTO BALESTRINI. . JUAN J. B. PAMPURO. . Enrique Hidalgo. . Juan H. Estrada.