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[Maria Hamlin Zuniga]

Comment & Analysis / Africa's economic problems have a medical solution /



Regina Rabinovich Diseases cost the continent billions a year

Africa's economic problems have a medical solution

M alaria kills three children per minute. This amounts to a quiet global
catastrophe. Quiet, because it has been taking place for millennia and
become a fact of everyday life. Its impact is especially felt in Africa. In
Mozambique, which I recently visited, malaria patients occupy 40% of the
nation's hospital beds. And these are just the people fortunate enough to
make it to a health centre.
As the G8 countries continue to deliberate a new blueprint for lifting
African nations out of poverty, and as the 14th international Aids
conference takes place in Barcelona, leaders must look beyond the standard
fare of discussions on increased aid and trade. They must also seriously
consider the impact that infectious diseases such as malaria, Aids and
tuberculosis have on African economies.
Infectious disease is much more than a health issue. Fighting disease must
be a central, not ancillary, part of the economic strategy for Africa if
countries there are to achieve the significant boost in economic growth that
all sides agree is critical to reducing extreme poverty.
Infectious disease has crippled African efforts to achieve economic
self-sufficiency for at least the last half-century - predating the debt
crises, corruption and trade matters that dominated so much of the recent G8
discussion of the continent's economies. In closing the first malaria summit
two years ago, Nigeria's president, Olusegun Obasanjo, asserted: "We are
made poor by malaria."
Other infectious diseases, especially Aids and TB, also exact a heavy toll.
And this toll goes beyond the pain and suffering that victims of these
diseases endure. The
 damage also manifests itself in a significant and quantifiable drag on
Africa's GDP.
Currently, 300m-500m cases of malaria occur every year. Symptoms include
fever, shivering, pain in the joints, headache, repeated vomiting,
generalised convulsions and coma. Death can result in severe cases. Of the
estimated 2.7 million people killed by malaria every year, 75% are African
children under the age of five.
While visiting a local hospital in Gambia, I encountered a young girl aged
about 10 suffering from severe malaria. She had been brought to the hospital
already in a coma, her mother watching anxiously as her oldest child lay
unresponsive. Though she might not have known the statistics, the mother
probably knew of children in that state who did not survive. In fact, 50% of
cerebral malaria cases result in death, even with treatment in hospital.
If G8 leaders and their counterparts in Africa want to boost GDP, they
should consider that diseases such as malaria exact an enormous price not
only in lives, but also in medical costs and lost labour, harming the
economic wellbeing of entire families, communities and nations. Malaria
shackles the poor to a continuous cycle of poverty. The economic, social and
development burden is staggering. According to a Harvard University study
published in 2000, Africa's annual GDP would be $100bn more than it is today
if
 malaria had been eliminated 35 years ago - many times more than all the
development aid provided to the continent in a year.
Meaningful economic development in Africa cannot occur if addressing
infectious disease is seen as a secondary goal rather than a critical part
of the new vision for economic stability. This will require those
responsible for implementing a new economic plan for Africa to broaden their
notion of what constitutes a successful core macroeconomic strategy.
The Malaria Vaccine Initiative is working to accelerate the development of
malaria vaccines and to ensure that, once a vaccine is licensed, it will be
available in Africa and elsewhere. However, such vaccine development becomes
more and more expensive as products move further down the pipeline. Making
sure that there is funding for large-scale, late-stage trials, sufficient
manufacturing capacity, and wide availability of a successful vaccine in
poor, malaria-endemic regions will involve investments of the magnitude that
require the financial participation of nations.
No one would argue with the need to reduce the human suffering caused by
malaria, Aids and TB. But it is doubtful that infectious diseases will
receive the attention they merit in the effort to lift African nations from
poverty unless world leaders firmly link disease burden to economic
development. Failure to do so means that infectious disease will continue to
rob Africa - a continent of more than 800 million people - of its economic
potential.
 Dr Regina Rabinovich is director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative at the
Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, Rockville, Maryland

The Guardian Weekly 11-7-2002, page 14



Comment & Analysis / Failing Aids victims /



Failing Aids victims

That Aids is quietly but lethally seeping across the globe has just been
exposed by the United Nations agency, Unaids. Its report calculated that
more than 2 million people died of Aids in Africa alone last year. Unaids
also points out that some of the world's largest countries - among them
India and China - are on the edge of outbreaks that may dwarf the scale of
the current global crisis, which affects 40 million people. This is not an
unstoppable pandemic disease. There was a groundswell of world opinion that
led the UN to launch a global fund for Aids, malaria and tuberculosis this
year. But there have been many fine words and not much action from rich
countries.
There are drugs available to enable sufferers to live with Aids. Cheap
copies of these drugs are manufactured in some developing countries, but big
pharmaceutical firms have resisted attempts to promote these generics for
fear of forgoing profits. These obstacles mean the price of these treatments
remains beyond the reach of poor nations. We must not deny life to poor
people infected with HIV while offering their rich counterparts a future.

The Guardian Weekly 11-7-2002, page 14