THE WHO鈥檚 plans to eliminate seven major diseases may cost much more than the
$7.5 billion the agency has budgeted. And the goal could even harm public
health by soaking up money from other programmes, claim some US officials.
The diseases targeted for eradication or 鈥渆limination鈥濃�攔educing them to
such a low incidence that they are no longer a problem鈥攁re lymphatic
filariasis, guinea worm disease, polio, leprosy, measles, river blindness and
Chagas鈥� disease.
The polio eradication campaign should be completed by 2000 at a cost of
$1.6 billion. Programmes on leprosy and guinea worm disease are also
making good progress. But the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative
arm of the US Congress, has doubts about other WHO plans, such as its goal of
eliminating lymphatic filariasis, or elephantiasis, by 2030 at a cost of
$228 million.
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鈥淒ata underlying the cost and the time-frame estimates are incomplete,鈥� Ben
Nelson, a GAO official, told the House of Representatives Committee on
International Relations last week.
The US Agency for International Development, meanwhile, in a letter to the
GAO, warns that the programmes 鈥渕ay result in unfortunate reduction in efforts
to prevent other diseases鈥�.
David Heymann, the WHO鈥檚 director of communicable diseases surveillance and
control, agrees that the estimates may have to be revised. But he says the
programmes will save money and lives in the long run.