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Immunization Focus
August 2000
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NEWS
Health promises at the G8 summit: the challenge is to deliver
Table of countries approved for Fund
support
A PROMISE to give priority to expanding children’s immunization was
among the less-widely reported outcomes of the summit of the Group of
Eight (G8) major industrialized nations in Okinawa, Japan, which ended
on 23 July. But after a summit widely criticized in the world’s media
for its lack of real progress, all eyes are now on those responsible for
turning promises into action.
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"We have the political backing and promises of some new money: now
the real test is to make something happen on the ground," Andrew
Cassels, senior policy analyst at the World Health Organization,
told Immunization Focus. Cassels said that the WHO had been
strongly "encouraged" by the G8 leaders’ recognition that better
health is key to reducing poverty, but warned that there is "a
huge agenda of work to be done over the next few months".
The seven rich nations plus Russia committed themselves to fight
infectious diseases, especially AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and
childhood diseases. In their final communiqué, they set targets to
halve TB deaths and the burden of malaria disease, and to cut by a
quarter the number of HIV- infected young people, by 2010. The
communiqué does not specify any mechanisms for achieving these
targets, although a further meeting in the autumn will review
priorities, discuss new ways of working and set a timetable for
action.
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A better chance: children like these in Haiti cannot afford to wait
too long for results
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New money has been promised from two of the rich nations: Japan will
allocate US$3 billion in assistance to low-income countries for
infectious and parasitic disease control over the next five years; and
the United Kingdom is to double to US $160 million over the next three
years, its development assistance for improving access to drugs and
technologies for major communicable diseases.
The European Commission, whose president also attended the G8 summit,
is also understood to have promised significant new funding although no
statement or specified sum had been announced as Immunization Focus went
to press.
The leaders in Okinawa also heard confirmation that the International
Development Association, the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm,
would treble its provision of credit to combat AIDS, malaria, TB and
childhood diseases, including immunization, to at least US$1 billion.
Besides setting targets on the three major killer diseases, the G8
communiqué also sets out a broader agenda which will need to be
addressed if these targets are to be achieved.
This includes "the development of equitable and effective health
systems, expanded immunization, nutrition and micronutrients and the
prevention and treatment of infectious diseases". And it commits the G8
nations and their partners to work "to make existing cost- effective
interventions, including key drugs, vaccines and preventive measures
more universally available and affordable in developing countries".
Reference
1. G8 Okinawa Summit
Phyllida Brown
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