By Asma’u Ahmad
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said developing countries have to increase their spending by an initial total of $134 billion dollars annually, if they want to reach the United Nations health development targets by 2030.
Two years after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) were adopted, the Geneva-based UN agency presented the first cost estimate for meeting those goals that are related to health, such as universal health coverage. According to WHO, these investments could prevent 97 million deaths until 2030.
Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus
To achieve this, health spending in 67 developing and emerging economies should gradually increase, starting with 134 billion of additional investments that would increase to an annual 371 billion dollars of extra spending by 2030. WHO said with the money, these countries could add more than 23 million health workers and could build more than 400,000 medical facilities.
However, the UN body said, poor countries would not be able to finance his ambitious effort by themselves. WHO also calculated that some 54 billion dollars of international donor funding would be needed per year to help them meet these health goals.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said that the investment into health systems would be well spent. “Strong health systems are our best defence to prevent disease outbreaks from becoming epidemics,” Ghebreyesus wrote in a commentary
