A/HRC/44/46 minimum essential food, which is nutritionally adequate and safe, to ensure freedom from hunger; access to basic shelter, housing and sanitation and an adequate supply of safe and potable water; provision of essential drugs; equitable distribution of all health-care facilities, goods and services; adoption of a national public health strategy and plan of action seated on epidemiological evidence that is to be devised and periodically reviewed on the basis of a participatory and transparent process; provision of education and access to information; and appropriate training for health-care personnel, including education on human rights. 22. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes the importance of non-discrimination and preventative interventions on the social determinants of health, health education, rehabilitation and the human rights education of the health-care workforce, as well as the provision of health-care at the community level, which is essential for people living in remote areas or peripheral areas, together with outreach services. Focus on primary care must not lead to the loss of medical expertise in diagnosing and properly treating a highly complex disease, nor to the absence of secondary and tertiary services able to address the multiple medical challenges posed by leprosy. The provision of health care to children affected should ensure, in cooperation with social, child protection, education and other relevant services, a continuum of care for children that effectively uses psychoeducational and psychosocial methods for interventions that enhance emotional health and social development. The Special Rapporteur also emphasizes the importance of health-care systems empowering community engagement and participation, including social support, increased patient-provider communication that should fully acknowledge the experience of affected persons as valid knowledge, psychosocial individual and family counselling, selfcare and self-help groups, peer support and peer health promoters and outreach activities within partnerships between health services and persons affected as integral parts of healthcare services. 23. A rights-based strategy for leprosy within health-care systems must be peoplecentred, having as its priority the well-being of persons, communities and populations, and must ensure: availability, as well as physical and economic accessibility of health-care services; quality of health-care facilities, goods and services; active and informed participation of users; gender-sensitive and culturally sensitive strategies, as well as childfriendly services; accountability of the health-care workforce, with indicators that facilitate monitoring; non-discriminatory treatment; and provision of high-quality medical care. The strategy must take a holistic approach that includes a rights-based approach to mental health, which should be ethically respectful, culturally appropriate, gender-sensitive and empowering to individuals, making use of peer support as an integral part of recoverybased services. D. In practice 24. In Brazil, the conditional cash transfer programme Family Allowance and the benefit of continuous instalments for older persons and persons with disabilities have been guaranteeing financial aid to persons affected who are eligible under the established criteria for both benefits, even though difficulties in access have been reported. Private-public partnerships between the Ministry of Health and the Movement of Reintegration of Persons Affected by Hansen’s Disease (MORHAN), Novartis Brazil, DAHW Brazil, the Sasakawa Health Foundation and the Pan American Health Organization are examples of groundbreaking initiatives in the fields of health care and active case detection, awarenessraising, the training of health-care workers, outreach activities and community engagement. In India, the pension for persons with disabilities has been benefiting persons affected by leprosy that fit into the established criteria of disability, but difficulties in access have been reported, as well as the insufficiency of the pension amount to meet basic needs. Civil society has been taking the lead in the training of affected persons for inclusion in the labour market and the creation of job opportunities, an important example being the vocational training centres in India. Microcredit loans, training through partnerships with non-governmental organizations, including initiatives in areas such agriculture and/or livestock rearing, have been reported in Mozambique, the Niger and Nigeria. The existence 7