Global healthcare takes more than a pill
Bill Frist, former Senator
Boston Globe, August 13, 2009
AS THE United States works on a comprehensive global health strategy as part of its commitment to fighting world poverty, it faces an opportune moment to move beyond tracking the number of HIV/AIDS patients treated or bed nets distributed to reduce the spread of malaria. Having worked with Senator John Kerry on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, I recognize the importance of saving as many lives as possible struggling to cope with this disease in developing countries. While these are important benchmarks to measure, a broader, more aggressive approach to global health is needed.We need to expand our thinking to encompass holistic solutions that go into improving the health of the world’s poor. We need to think profoundly about our practices and the significance of sound policies to sound health. Global health must deliver more than a pill to the poor to relieve their immediate pain; it must deliver a system-wide program of rehabilitation to increase the productivity and prosperity of their communities.
Doing this requires a multi-dimensional approach. It means moving beyond the focus on high-profile diseases to also invest in overlooked, but treatable, diseases. In addition to HIV/AIDS and malaria, blindness is rampant in developing countries, where a child goes blind every minute. This means up to 700,000 children face a difficult reality, with a tragic 70 percent of them dying within the first year of going blind. Yet, such blindness, caught early, is preventable.
This new thinking – led by a strong example and commitment from the United States – should look at global health investments as interconnected parts of a complex system of care. While the 25.3 million Africans infected with HIV/AIDS certainly need treatment now, they also need an integrated approach to their illness that ensures they have passable roads to reach clinics for care and access to clean water so they do not contract other diseases to complicate their already-compromised health. Treating people can only do so much if they risk death on unsafe roads or cannot sell their goods to support their families.
