Study Tallies Disease's Cost in Poor Nations

A comprehensive World Health Organization report, compiled by a blue-ribbon commission including two Nobel laureates, puts specific dollar figures on how disease drains the economies of poor countries. It also lays out the costs -- and surprising benefits -- of improving the health of the world's destitute. For just a penny out of every ten dollars in the rich countries, combined with sharply increased spending by poor countries themselves, millions of lives could be saved each year, reaping annual economic benefits in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Released Thursday, the report is titled, "Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development." Two years in the making, it is based on almost 90 background studies and was funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to the report, the lost earning potential of people killed and sickened by malaria amounts to almost 6 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's total 1999 gross domestic product. The figure for AIDS exceeds 17 percent -- and these represent the report's most conservative estimates. High infant mortality, a key indicator of overall health, correlates with low economic performance. It is also "one of the main predictors" of coups, civil wars and other forms of state collapse, according to a study, cited in the report, that examined state failures between 1960 and 1994.

Many of the deaths among the world's destitute population are the result of preventable or treatable diseases such as malaria and TB, and childhood diseases for which cheap and effective vaccines exist. Indeed, the world was making some progress before the advent of AIDS, which has slashed life expectancy in hard-hit countries.

The report recommends that low-income countries contribute $28 billion annually by channeling an additional 2 percent of their gross domestic product toward health and nutrition. Among the report's other recommendations is a call for pharmaceutical companies to extend the deep discounts they have offered on AIDS drugs to all essential medicines in poor countries.

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