UN Wants Health Spending Doubled

Developing countries need US$60 billion

The United Nations has called for health spending in developing countries to double to US$60 billion a year by 2010, designating it a locomotive to help haul these nations out of poverty.

    David Nabarro, director for sustainable development and healthy environments at the World Health Organization, said governments should consider healthcare to be an investment, not a cost. Citing a report by the WHO's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, he said an additional US$30 billion a year spent on health in developing countries, from the present level of $30 billion, would increase the value of production six folds and save eight million lives.

    Rich nations, he hoped, would meet at least half of the additional 30 billion required, with the rest coming from national governments. At present, wealthy countries provide $6 billion in health aid through official development programs.

    "This of course is a pretty significant increase on what's being spent at the moment, but the amount of external donor assistance required to reach this is equivalent to only 0.1 percent of the [gross domestic product] of the world's rich nations," Nabarro said. He said that the extra spending should mostly be focused on Asia, the world's most populated continent and home to most of its poor, and on Africa, which bears the brunt of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

    Delegates to last month's Earth Summit said it was impossible to ignore the link between poverty and environmental damage on one side, and ill-health on the other.

    Norwegian Environment Minister Borge Brende called on the summit to show "political will to break the vicious cycle." A third of global diseases were caused by environmental degradation, with one in five children in poor segments of societies unable to reach the age of five mainly due to air and water pollution, he said.

    World Bank health director Robert Hecht said "environmental health issues have fallen between the cracks" and called attention to provision of clean infrastructure as well as steps to tackle emerging health threats. He said the Bank now listed smoking as a new epidemic that must be tackled before it leads to "enormous health damage" in developing nations in the next 10 to 15 years.

    Scientists say damage to the environment and deep-rooted poverty are major causes of disease. They include water-borne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea, which are spread by poor sanitation, as well as tuberculosis from living in damp, cramped housing. Climate change inflicted by global warming is also expected to have an impact on health by spreading the geographical range of malarial mosquitoes. In Africa, the rampaging AIDS epidemic is having a dire economic impact, as millions of families are plunged into poverty when their wage earner dies prematurely.

    The UN's call came amid ballooning healthcare costs in Asia which the WHO said is forcing poor families to spend up to 30 percent of their meager incomes on this key necessity. The problem is compounded by the lack of financial protection schemes and health insurance for low-income families.

    "There is a general concern that health costs are increasing rapidly and resources are not being used efficiently and effectively," laments Shigeru Omi, WHO director for Western Pacific.

    Omi said a leading cause for increase in healthcare costs is excessive use of high technology medical services. Minor surgery, hi-tech diagnostic services, and pharmaceuticals have become the main source of hospital revenue in the Philippines, Cambodia, China, Laos, and Vietnam. Omi estimates that "20 to 30 percent" of earnings of low-income families are channeled to healthcare, including purchasing drugs. AFP