Additional $5.1B in Prevention, Treatment Services Could Prevent 6M Childhood Deaths, Study Says

An additional $5.1 billion annually is needed to provide proven prevention and treatment services in the world's poorest countries that could prevent the deaths of six million children under age five, according to a study published in the June 25 issue of The Lancet, the Washington Post reports. Jennifer Bryce, a child health consultant to the World Health Organization, and colleagues two years ago developed a strategy to reduce childhood mortality using only inexpensive, easy-to-use and proven technologies. The researchers used the state of medical care worldwide in 2000 as a baseline and estimated the cost of universally applying the proven health care technologies in 42 countries where 90% of childhood deaths occur. For each of the 42 countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers estimated the percentage of children receiving 16 prevention services, such as childbirth with a skilled birth attendant or the administration of nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, and seven treatment services, including the administration of antibiotics or malaria drugs. The authors estimated the cost of the services and their delivery and concluded that an additional $5.1 billion -- or $1.23 per person living in the 42 countries -- is needed annually to prevent six million childhood deaths each year. Approximately $4.2 billion currently is spent on the technologies included in the study, which assumed that the additional services would be provided by community-based health care workers and did not include calculations for scaling up health infrastructures, the Post reports.

Reaction
The researchers hope the study will garner attention from global health experts and politicians, according to the Post. "The word on the street is, 'If you don't have a price tag, like the people pushing for HIV/AIDS treatment do, how can you expect the U.S. Congress and donors to support you?' Well, we have a price tag now," Bryce said. Barbara McPake, a health economist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said, "You can't come up with a number like this without making some pretty heroic assumptions. But I don't think there is a chance that they are vastly overstating or understating the estimate. It's very important to point out that this isn't expensive and that there's an unsolved problem of huge dimensions that is relatively neglected" (Brown, Washington Post, 6/24). She added, "We need the money, but we also need attention to building up the health systems through which the services will be delivered" (Reaney, Reuters, 6/23).