Seventh, the world should honor, for just a few billion dollars per year, the access of the poorest of the poor to sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, contraception, and emergency obstetrical care. Eighth, the Global Fund should offer roughly $400 million per year for comprehensive control of several tropical diseases, mainly worm infections, which occur in virtually the same regions where malaria is rampant. Ninth, the Global Fund should also open a new financing mechanism to bolster primary health care, including most importantly the construction of clinics and the hiring and training of nurses and community health workers.
Tenth, using recent breakthroughs in medicine and public health, the expanded health systems in the poorest countries should be equipped to handle non-communicable diseases which have long been neglected but which are often treatable at low cost: hypertension, cataracts and depression.
These simple steps could save the lives of nearly 10 million adults and children per year, at a cost that would be nearly unnoticeable to the rich world. By combining improved survival with access to family planning and contraception, these measures would also slow rather than accelerate population growth in the poorest countries, thereby easing the economic and environmental strains that bulging populations are imposing on the impoverished regions. Health for all is not only the moral imperative it was at the launch of the World Health Organization 60 years ago, but is also the best practical bargain on the planet.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
3 Comments
Add CommentWell no not exactly. Sachs calls for more of what we are doing vertical disease by disease programs. This diverts resources human and physical from true primary care which address the major killers of diarhea, respiratory disease and perinatal mortality (mothers and children) to high tech and expensive "sexy" diseases like cleft lip, blindness, TB and yes ever malaria.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAloner explanation can be found here:
Strengthening primary care: addressing the disparity between vertical and horizontal investment
Authors: De Maeseneer, Jan1; van Weel, Chris2; Egilman, David3; Mfenyana, Khaya4; Kaufman, Arthur5; Sewankambo, Nelson6
Source: British Journal of General Practice, Volume 58, Number 546, January 2008 , pp. 3-4(2)
Publisher: Royal College of General Practitioners
Well I do agree with most of the steps listed, but having worked in the primary health sector in more than one developing country both in west Africa, Nigeria and South- East Asia, East Timor, I came to realize that one vital instrument that is being neglected is data management in the primary health sector. There is virtually no systematic data collection nor analysis in the primary health system in places I have worked. Even when these data are collected and submitted, no feed back ever occurs. How then can performance be monitored? How then can planning be done adequately by the Health ministry? yet we see beautifully structured statistical reports daily, the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisauthenticity I can not vouch
for. We in the developing countries need to go back to the drawing board, critically audit our performance and data management, and with the help of the international community brake the yolk of poverty and disease. The communities need to know the true picture, may help attitude change.
One shocking problem is that agencies are forcing unnecessary vaccines on various countries, or insisting that they buy fancy new combo vaccines instead of the old basics that will work just fine. Here is an article about the problem: http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/?p=113
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this