Director of Global Health Forum discusses state of world health research
Cairo: Despite Dr. Stephen Matlin s great wealth of knowledge and passion for the field of health research, he has few figures to share.
The annual Global Forum for Health Research kicked off its four-day conference in Cairo on Sunday to address the needs of developing nations in Combating disease and promoting health. Matlin, the forum s executive director, spoke to The Daily Star Egypt about the state of the world s health research.
We don t know as much as we d like to he said, regarding where research money is directed. Though this knowledge would be beneficial, Matlin says the private sector doesn t like to tell how they re spending and at the same time, detailed public records are frequently not collected.
What is known is that research spending and the rate of increase have grown steadily. In 1986 the world spent $30 billion on health research while 2003 saw nearly $126 billion spent, which is $10 billion more than the previous year.
Despite increased spending, developing countries needs are under addressed and Matlin says some neglected diseases get virtually no investment. While high-income countries invest in non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and mental and neurological disorders, spending on low-income country concerns, mostly communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS, malaria and tropical infections like local bilharzias, get less priority, approximately one-tenth of the spending per life lost or infected when compared with non-communicable diseases.
Matlin suggests that government priorities are not often enough to determine the course of health research. He believes the starting point should be health policy and systems research, an emerging field targeting the deficiencies and capabilities of the health system itself, so as to optimize available resources.
Despite limited resources, Matlin believes governments must make a hard choice and strike a balance between spending on more urgent health needs and longer-term investments.
He recommends countries invest more in systemic influences on health, especially education, an outlook termed the social vaccine by some conference participants. One of the best investments any country can make is the education of women and girls.
Matlin praised Minister of Health Hatem Al-Gabali’s view that reforms in the entire system of health financing are necessary to ensure that poor people are adequately covered.
While many countries in the region have homegrown science and technology capabilities, Matlin says these capabilities could be directed more beneficially and innovatively.
Egypt is one country that has a large number of scientists, but Matlin asks whether the system will harness that potential to actually tackle the country s problems.
He sites these problems as being infectious diseases, hepatitis, and heart disease, stroke, and cancer, some of which is due to smoking. Is the government willing to tackle that problem? he asks.
Although the West is frequently attacked for not doing enough in medicine to help the developing world, Matlin disagrees, referring to malaria and bilharzia treatments, though he admits it could do more.
We all live in the same global space and you can t divide the diseases of the developed and the developing countries, said Matlin, referring to an increase in a two-way flow of diseases between East and West.
Finally, Matlin explained the conference s emphasis on sessions on women s issues as part of the search for equity in all areas.
Women suffer more health problems then men . And they have very specific challenges to do with their reproductive heath.
Gender discrimination results in women suffering more than they need to.
