Partnership &Private Sector &Procurement Supply Management Bill Brieger | 14 Nov 2010 10:17 am
Chronic diseases – as if malaria were not enough
Two news stories today remind us that low and middle income countries (LIMCs) not only continue to suffer from infectious diseases like malaria, but that they are also burdened with chronic health problems arising from ‘western lifestyle’ behaviors like smoking and over-eating.
The New York Times describes efforts of cigarette companies, not only to promote use of tobacco products, but also to intimidate through lawsuits LMICs who try to control tobacco advertising and sales. Specifically …
Companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco are contesting limits on ads in Britain, bigger health warnings in South America and higher cigarette taxes in the Philippines and Mexico. They are also spending billions on lobbying and marketing campaigns in Africa and Asia, and in one case provided undisclosed financing for TV commercials in Australia.
A Lancet article reported in the BBC documents how adult obesity in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are above the average for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Recommendations to reverse these trends include “media campaigns promoting healthier lifestyles, taxes and subsidies to improve diets, tighter government regulation of food labeling and restrictions on food advertising.”
We have here an intersection among the public, the private and the personal. Although individuals can make personal choices and public health organizations can provide health education, the private sector can use their disproportionately enormous financial resources to advertise unhealthy behaviors and threaten in court those who oppose their efforts against health. Statements by agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) may have a relatively smaller effect here.
The balance seems completely different when it comes to malaria. All partners appear to promoting the same healthy agenda – use of Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Nets and prompt treatment with appropriate antimalarial drugs to name a two key behaviors. The role of WHO is stronger in determining what are appropriate malaria commodities including its pre-qualification of medicines and the WHOPES evaluation scheme for reviewing insecticides.
These WHO processes influence the bulk of purchases for major international donors and national malaria control programs. This is not to say that “unqualified”, substandard or counterfeit malaria drugs don’t make it into the markets of developing countries, but the legal framework is more likely to work against such unhealthy schemes.
Hopefully the malaria partnership that promotes healthy behaviors will continue, resulting in reduced mortality among vulnerable groups such as young children. It would be a shame for these efforts to reduce infant and child mortality were overshadowed by forces that threaten the lifespan in later years from obesity and tobacco induced cancers and coronary problems.