WASHINGTON, March 28 (UPI) — More should be invested in low-cost, low-tech interventions that save babies’ lives, global health advocates said at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
“Most of the 10 million children who die each year die from very common infectious diseases,” said Peter Salama, chief of health at UNICEF.
“But most of that basket of diseases has no dedicated global fund,” he told United Press International.
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Part of any rethinking of where funding goes must also look at where investments go within countries, said Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, chairman of the child health department at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan.
In Pakistan, only 15 percent of public health expenditures go to the local clinics where 90 percent of Pakistanis receive care, he said, while about 40 percent of spending goes to advanced care services at university hospitals.
As a result, the clinics are cash-strapped and many mothers “vote with their feet” by staying at home and foregoing care altogether, Bhutta said.
Ismailimail 