PRESS BRIEFING BY WHO REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR AFRICA

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY WHO REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR AFRICA

Health was an integral part of social and economic development and should be brought to the forefront in terms of distribution of resources and advocacy, Dr. Ebrahim Samba, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, told correspondents this afternoon in a Headquarters briefing.

In the realization that health was too serious and important an issue to be left to medical people alone, he said the WHO was now pushing hard for partnerships in tackling the problems. Health issues should be given due regard and corresponding high investment.

Dr. Kandjoura Drame, Minister of Health and Social Services of Guinea, also attended the briefing, which was held in conjunction with a panel discussion that was to follow at 3 p.m. in the Economic and Social Council, on the overall global public health problems facing Africa.

Mr. Samba said there was a growing realization that health was part of peace and part of the economy. Health related to poverty and poverty related to health. Describing health as more than freedom from disease, Mr. Samba said “We hope the Economic and Social Council will place health firmly on the front burner”.

Health concerned food and agriculture, education and the environment, he continued. Healthy people could produce better, therefore people with poor health would eventually be poor, and poverty was a very important problem in Africa. Ill health and poverty led to social and political instability which could lead to civil wars. All ministries of government had a role to play in health issues. They were not simply the prerogative of the health ministries.

The overall health situation in Africa was mixed. On the positive side, there had been success in eradicating smallpox, and they were on the way to eradicating other diseases -- measles, polio, leprosy and guinea worm. On the other hand, there were new problems such as HIV/AIDS and the resurgence of old problems like malaria. “We are bedeviled by increasing civil strife, leading to more than 9 million refugees and 30 million internally displaced persons. All these give rise to more and more poverty and debt burden, and poverty gives rise to ill health and disease proliferation", he said.

Asked how he felt about the proposal in the Security Council by United States Vice-President Al Gore that $150 million be spent on health problems in Africa, Mr. Samba said he had been extremely grateful to hear that $100 to $200 million -- perhaps even up to $300 million -- had been earmarked for AIDS in Africa. Although the amount was a drop in the ocean, it was a good start. He noted that HIV/AIDS in the United States was much less prevalent than in Africa -- less than 2 per cent in the United States, while in Africa the rate sometimes went as high as 25 to 30 per cent of the population infected. Yet, United States expenditure on AIDS was in the billions. For treatment alone, around $8 billion was spent, and total expenditure amounted to more than $10 billion

WHO Briefing - 2 - 17 April 2000

spent on AIDS per year. “So compared to $100, $200 or $300 million, we say thank you very much for that but we would need much more to face up to HIV/AIDS in Africa", he said.

Asked for a figure on how much it would take to tackle AIDS in Africa, Mr. Samba said that at a recent meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, with 24 African ministers and representatives from the United States Department of State, there was an estimate of $10 billion over five years.

To a correspondent who questioned the relevance of discussing health in terms of regional trends, Mr. Samba said the WHO was looking at health in Africa vis-à-vis the other regions. For example, Africa bore 80 per cent of the global disease burden. In the area of HIV/AIDS, the world total was about 34 million affected people, 24 million of whom were in Africa. With malaria, of the 500 million cases a year, 400 million of them were in Africa.

Another correspondent, who referred to health as a human right, asked if there was an ethical dimension lacking in the leadership that allocated so few resources to health problems. Health was indeed a human right, Mr. Samba replied. How that acknowledgement translated itself into action was the issue. Unfortunately, health was given fairly low priority in budgets. However, at a regional African meeting of ministers in Libreville, Gabon, a few years ago, a resolution was passed that called for health budgets to rise to at least 11 per cent of the national budgets. Some countries were doing very well in honouring that resolution.

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