The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the UK Department of International Development have agreed to appoint a Health and HIV/AIDS Adviser to step up advice, monitoring and liaison between DFID, the Global Fund and Mozambican health authorities. The collaboration will ensure that the Global Fund, as a major financier of the health sector of Mozambique, is kept informed and can provide policy inputs whilst having no staff of its own present in the country. The article describes the work up to and components of the agreement.
Resource allocation and health financing
UK and Global Fund in Mozambique sign partnership agreement
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
Zambia introduces free health care
Shapi Shacinda
Zambia scrapped health fees on Saturday, one of the first benefits to flow from debt relief granted to African countries last year by the G8 group of wealthy nations. Many poor people across Zambia often die because they cannot afford health care and are forced to resort to ineffectual traditional remedies. This narrative depicts the impact of this abolition of user fees in the eyes of a Zambian man.
Cost and cost-effectiveness of community based and health facility based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Wandwalo E, Robberstad B, Morkve O: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2005, 3:6
Identifying new approaches to tuberculosis treatment that are effective and put less demand to meagre health resources is important. One such approach is community based direct observed treatment (DOT). The purpose of the study was to determine the cost and cost effectiveness of health facility and community based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in an urban setting in Tanzania.
Modeling the cost effectiveness of injury interventions in lower and middle income countries: opportunities and challenges
Bishai DM, Hyder AA: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2006, 4:2
This paper estimates the cost-effectiveness of five interventions that could counter injuries in lower and middle income countries(LMICs): better traffic enforcement, erecting speed bumps, promoting helmets for bicycles, and promoting helmets for motorcycles in China, and storing kerosene in child proof containers in South Africa.
Technical efficiency of district hospitals: Evidence from Namibia using Data Envelopment Analysis
Zere E, Mbeeli T, Shangula K, Mandlhate C, Mutirua K, Tjivambi B and Kapenambili W: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2006, 4:5
In most countries of the sub-Saharan Africa, health care needs have been increasing due to emerging and re-emerging health problems. However, the supply of health care resources to address the problems has been continuously declining, thus jeopardizing the progress towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals. Namibia is no exception to this. It is therefore necessary to quantify the level of technical inefficiency in the countries so as to alert policy makers of the potential resource gains to the health system if the hospitals that absorb a lion's share of the available resources are technically efficient.
The costs of reducing loss to follow-up in South African cervical cancer screening
Goldhaber-Fiebert J, Denny LE, De Souza M: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 2005, 3:11
This article describes the methods and findings of a study designed to quantify the resources used in reestablishing contact with women who missed their scheduled cervical cancer screening visits and to assess the success of this effort in reducing loss to follow-up in a developing country setting.
Africa lacking the financial support it says it needs to fight the spread of bird flu
Lacking the financial support it says it needs to fight the spread of bird flu, Africa has not received any of the money it was promised at the international bird flu conference in Beijing last month. With news of the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in northern Nigeria, these funds are now urgently needed to update laboratories, improve diagnostic services on a regional level, and provide the capacity to purchase animal vaccines. Some of the money intended for Africa was also meant to help governments compensate their citizens for any domestic birds that needed to be culled, and to step up information campaigns in rural areas.
Learning to live with Health Economics
WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen
This set of health economics learning materials has been prepared by the WHO Regional Office for Europe to assist health policy decision-makers, advisers, planners, managers, practitioners and other concerned groups. Health policy and practice is a large and complex area. It can benefit from a range of perspectives, including that of economics. Economics is particularly useful for decision-makers, since resource limitations and financial constraints apply in all health systems and at all levels. There are always more useful activities competing for priority than can be resourced; and this has significant implications for resource allocation decisions, health outcomes and equity.
Projecting OECD health and long-term care expenditures: What are the main drivers?
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for projecting public heath and long-term care expenditures. Notably, it considers the impact of demographic and non-demographic effects for both health and long-term care. Compared with other studies, the paper extends the demographic drivers by incorporating death-related costs and the health status of the population.
What are the economic consequences for households of illness and of paying for health care in low- and middle-income country contexts?
D McIntyre, M Thiede, G Dahlgren, M Whitehead Social Science & Medicine, 62, 4 February 2006, 858-865
This paper presents the findings of a critical review of studies carried out in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) focusing on the economic consequences for households of illness and health care use. These include household level impacts of direct costs (medical treatment and related financial costs), indirect costs (productive time losses resulting from illness) and subsequent household responses. It highlights that health care financing strategies that place considerable emphasis on out-of-pocket payments can impoverish households.