Sections:

7. Health

What we agreed at Gleneagles

The G8 will work with developing country governments to improve health services for the poor – helping them train and retain doctors, nurses and community health workers and to strengthen health systems.

The G8 will do more to tackle TB and malaria so that, by 2015, 85% of those vulnerable to malaria have access to treatment and bed nets – potentially saving 600,000 children’s lives a year.

How is the UK doing?

child with bednet The UK has committed 50% of its future bilateral support to basic services. This includes supporting nurses and doctors in African health systems and removing fees for those using the services so that the most vulnerable people have access to health provision. We are working to make sure that this aid is longer term and more predictable. Only then will countries have the confidence to improve health services, invest in training, recruit additional staff and revitalise health infrastructure.

We have also committed money to global health partnership funds, such as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (£60 million), and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. The UK’s total commitment through to 2008 is £359 million.

We also lead and finance a series of initiatives providing innovative funding to combat killer diseases. These include: the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), which is financing both new vaccines, such as hepatitis B, and basic vaccines; UNITAID, which is financing drugs and diagnostics for AIDS, TB and malaria; and the Advanced Market Commitment (AMC), which will provide an incentive for the development of a vaccine for pneumoccocal disease.

How the International Community is doing

The Health Millennium Development Goals remain off-track, particularly in Africa. The donor response remains patchy. A number of donors have contributed significantly to the innovative funding mechanisms. More than 1.7 million early deaths will have been prevented in the world’s poorest countries as a result of support by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) up to the end of 2005. The Advanced Market Commitment, the latest innovative funding mechanism, was launched in February 2007 with a total value of $1.5 billion.

What should happen next?

The UK will work with the World Bank and WHO to support long-term country health plans and improve co-ordination between international health initiatives, such as global funds and developing country’s health system planning processes. The UK will lobby multilateral institutions to make aid more coordinated, predictable, long-term and flexible. We will work with bilateral donors, including our G8 partners, to provide more and longer-term financing to strengthen health systems and hire more health workers.

There is also a lack of transparency in the supply of medicines. This contributes to high levels of inefficiency and fraud and wastes valuable resources that should be spent on healthcare and increasing access to medicines. MeTA (the Medicines Transparency Alliance) is set for launch in 2007, bringing together governments, the private sector, civil society and international institutions to promote transparency and efficiency in the procurement and supply of medicines.

Where it is making a difference:

In Tanzania, the UK is supporting a $12 million insecticide treated net programme which should stop 40,000 children a year dying from malaria.

The UK helped the Uganda Ministry of Health to launch a nationwide campaign against polio and measles. We provided $1.1 million to support the purchase of vaccines and to implement its immunisation campaign targeting over 5.7 million children.

In Zambia the UK contributed £14.5 million to support the abolition of user fees at public health centres.