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    - Photo via U.S. Embassy- |
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Published on Tuesday, May 24, 2022
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The U.S.
First Lady, Jill Biden, finished her
tour in Costa Rica. She departed to
Joint Base Andrews, located in the
U.S. state of Maryland from Juan
Santamaría International Airport on
Monday. 
Among her
latest activities in Costa Rica was a
visit to a community center in Alajuelita
Canton, San
José, where she met young people from
the local chapter of a U.S.-sponsored
program, Sembremos Seguridad. About
1,500 local people are part of the
Sembremos Seguridad or Planting the
Seeds of Security program in the
English language. The
program offers educational workshops,
sports, martial arts, crafts, music
and dance among many activities in the
center which is led by the U.S. in
alliance with the Municipality of
Alajuelita and the Ministry of
Security. According
to the embassy, this center is one
of 83 that are located in the country.
The goal of the program is to support
high-risk communities exposed to drug
trafficking and crime. Another
activity of the First Lady on her last
day in Costa Rica was to participate
in the ceremony of the signature
agreements between the University of
Pennsylvania, the Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia and the Costa Rican
Children's Hospital. 
These
memorandums will allow the study of
the application of immunotherapy as a
procedure to treat certain types of
leukemia in minors. It’s one of the
advances promoted by the Cancer
Moonshot Initiative and by the U.S.
President Joe Biden administration.
The
arrangement allows patients to
travel to the University of
Pennsylvania or Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia to have
their immune cells harvested and
transformed into Chimeric
Antigen Receptor (CART) cells.
The successfully produced cells
are then intended to be shipped
to Costa Rica for infusion as
part of a clinical trial
protocol conducted here.
On
Saturday the First Lady met
with a group of female
entrepreneurs who have
participated in programs
sponsored by the U.S.
government.
She also had dinner with
President Rodrigo Chaves and
First Lady Signe Zeikate. Before
arriving in Costa Rica, Biden's
agenda included meeting with
President Guillermo Lasso and
First Lady María de Lourdes
Alcívar at Ecuador Carondelet
Palace. As well as meeting the
First Lady of Panama, Yazmín
Colón de Cortizo, at the Panama
Presidential Palace. The
First Lady's visit is part of
her tour of the region before
the U.S. hosts the Summit of the
Americas that will take place in
Los Angeles, California, from
June 6 to 10. Originally,
the U.S. First Lady's Latin
America tour included her
daughter, Ashley Biden. However,
she has covid-19 and was no
longer accompanying her mother
on this trip, the White House
said.
  
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