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Tackle
Infectious Disease to Help the Poor, Says WHO [Ashraf H. Lancet
2002;359:499] This
is a report in Lancet's "News" summarizing a new
global plan by the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health that
was presented at the World Economic Forum on February 2, 2002 in
New York City. The plan was authored by the commission chair, Jeffrey
Sachs of Harvard, and updates the prior report [Lancet 2001;358:2133].
The claim is that an investment of $66 billion/year by 2015 could
save eight million lives and produce a six-fold increase in economic
benefit, a total of $360 billion by 2020.
The plan
has six parts:
- Increased resources
to build health care systems in poor countries;
- More drugs and
vaccines, especially at low cost;
- Resource transfer
mechanisms;
- Improved health
care infrastructure and logistics of medicine distribution;
- Independent
and reliable monitoring,
- Health behavior
improvement by efficacy and communication.
The new focus is
on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, with a request for $8 billion/year
by 2007 from the Global Fund. The report notes that although developed
countries had committed 0.7% of their gross national product for
assistance in development, the only countries that have honored
these pledges to date are Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Norway, and Sweden. Concerns about the report included "widespread
cynicism of donors" [R. Morrow, Johns Hopkins], a concern that
the report "vastly underestimates the challenges involved in
implementation due to an incredibly poor infrastructure at all levels"
[Brooks Jackson, Johns Hopkins], a concern about this priority vs.
the needs for nutrition, clean water, sanitation, economic development,
transportation, and financing [B. Bloom, University of Pennsylvania],
concerns about adequately trained personnel and governmental corruption
[A. Zumla, University College, London], and total dependency on
political will [P. Winstanley, University of Liverpool, UK].
posted 2/20/2002
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