Press Release - Ministers Laud "Best Health Buys" at World Health Assembly

May 25, 2006

For Immediate Release
Contact: Nina Pruyn, 202-939-5448, npruyn@prb.org

MINISTERS LAUD "BEST HEALTH BUYS"
AT WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY

New Cost-Effective Solutions for Developing-Country Health Needs
Can "Immediately Improve the Health of Our People"

(GENEVA, 25 May 2006) - Health ministers and officials from around the world today welcomed the presentation by a leading health and development group of a set of "best health buys" for developing countries-proven and cost-effective interventions for some of the world's deadliest diseases.

The solutions were presented at the World Health Assembly today in Geneva as part of a briefing from the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP), a science, economics, and public health group that includes the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

"DCPP provides health officials and others with the latest and most sophisticated knowledge about how to combat the world's most deadly diseases," said Dean Jamison, lead DCPP editor as well as professor of health economics in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "Developing and developed countries should use its evidence and conclusions to chart a new course on national and global health policy."

The briefing was attended by 150 health ministers and other health officials from around the world, who heard DCPP's recommendations on the "best health buys" for developing countries-interventions recommended by nearly 500 scientists and experts for dealing with issues such as tobacco use; cardiovascular disease; maternal and newborn mortality; and infectious diseases, such as TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Specific best buys highlighted by DCPP include:

Officials at the briefing lauded DCPP's efforts to boost the quality of evidence-based decisionmaking on health issues. "DCPP provides more data, more information, more knowledge," said Anders Nordström, WHO's Acting Director-General. "DCPP will allow countries to take strong evidence and implement policy change."
 
"These insights can help us to immediately improve the health of our people," added Dr. Abdel-Aziz Saleh, special adviser to the Regional Director of the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. "We are especially interested in the best buys on chronic diseases, which have become a serious problem for our region over the last decade."

The "best buys" are part of a trio of flagship publications published in April by DCPP- Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition (DCP2); Priorities in Health; and Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors-that present the latest scientific research on a broad array of diseases and health conditions as well as recommendations for strengthening developing-country health systems.

The books and their companion website (www.dcp2.org) are designed specifically as resources for policymakers, health program managers, and donors. In a world where only 12 percent of global health spending occurs in low- and middle-income countries-which account for 92 percent of the global burden of disease-these resources are an important contribution to understanding how to close that gap in health status as well as aid development.

"Health care is one of the most effective means of fighting poverty," said Julio Frenk, Mexico's minister of health and a presenter at the briefing. "DCP2 is an enviable tool for this stewardship role that countries have to perform while reforming health systems with increased efficiency."

"It's time for these messages to move beyond the academic realm," added Sir George Alleyne, director emeritus of the Pan American Health Organization, DCPP editor, and chair of the briefing. "This event serves as the critical interface between those who represent the information and those who can implement policy changes at the country level." In addition to Alleyne, Frenk, and Jamison, Timothy Evans, WHO Assistant Director-General for Evidence and Information for Policy, also spoke at the briefing.

DCPP is a collaborative effort of the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Population Reference Bureau and is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For more information on the books or the project, visit the website at www.dcp2.org.

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This press release was prepared by the Population Reference Bureau.