A new global commitment to disease control in Africa
By Jeffrey Sachs
It is time for the global donor community— governments, multilateral agencies, foundations and individual philanthropists—to support a concerted attack on killer infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Contrary to widespread belief, total donor support for disease control has been meager in recent years, and poor countries lack the financial means to address their public health crises. The result is that, despite existing technology, each year millions of people are dying in Africa and other hard hit regions with consequent economic, political and social turmoil. One summary measure of health, the number of children that die before the age of 5 for every 1000 births, remains staggeringly high at 172 deaths in subSaharan Africa compared with just 6 in the high-income countries. Global donor support of $10–20 billion per year, much less than 0.1% of the combined $25 trillion gross national product (GNP) of the rich nations, would save millions of lives each year and would enable Africa to escape from a downward spiral of disease and economic collapse.