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Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories
* APRIL 23, 2010
Gates Rethinks His War on Polio
By ROBERT A. GUTH
Bill Gates walked into the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva?for a meeting in an underground chamber where global pandemics are managed?and was greeted by bad news. Polio was spreading across Africa, even after he gave $700 million to try to wipe out the disease.
That outbreak raged last summer, and this week a new outbreak hit Tajikistan, which hadn't seen polio for 19 years. The spread threatens one of the most ambitious health campaigns in the world, the effort to destroy the crippling disease once and for all. It also marks a setback for the Microsoft Corp. co-founder's new career as full-time philanthropist.
Next week, the organizations behind the polio fight, including WHO, Unicef, Rotary International and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plan to announce a major revamp of their strategy to address shortcomings exposed by the outbreaks...
...Is humanity better served by waging wars on individual diseases, like polio? Or is it better to pursue a broader set of health goals simultaneously?improving hygiene, expanding immunizations, providing clean drinking water?that don't eliminate any one disease, but might improve the overall health of people in developing countries?.
The new plan integrates both approaches. It's an acknowledgment, bred by last summer's outbreak, that disease-specific wars can succeed only if they also strengthen the overall health system in poor countries.
If successful, the recalibrated campaign could shape global health strategy for decades and boost fights against other diseases. A failure could rank the effort as one of the most expensive miscalculations in mankind's long war with disease. Already, polio has evaded a two-decade-long, $8.2 billion effort to kill it off...
* APRIL 23, 2010
Gates Rethinks His War on Polio
By ROBERT A. GUTH
Bill Gates walked into the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva?for a meeting in an underground chamber where global pandemics are managed?and was greeted by bad news. Polio was spreading across Africa, even after he gave $700 million to try to wipe out the disease.
That outbreak raged last summer, and this week a new outbreak hit Tajikistan, which hadn't seen polio for 19 years. The spread threatens one of the most ambitious health campaigns in the world, the effort to destroy the crippling disease once and for all. It also marks a setback for the Microsoft Corp. co-founder's new career as full-time philanthropist.
Next week, the organizations behind the polio fight, including WHO, Unicef, Rotary International and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plan to announce a major revamp of their strategy to address shortcomings exposed by the outbreaks...
...Is humanity better served by waging wars on individual diseases, like polio? Or is it better to pursue a broader set of health goals simultaneously?improving hygiene, expanding immunizations, providing clean drinking water?that don't eliminate any one disease, but might improve the overall health of people in developing countries?.
The new plan integrates both approaches. It's an acknowledgment, bred by last summer's outbreak, that disease-specific wars can succeed only if they also strengthen the overall health system in poor countries.
If successful, the recalibrated campaign could shape global health strategy for decades and boost fights against other diseases. A failure could rank the effort as one of the most expensive miscalculations in mankind's long war with disease. Already, polio has evaded a two-decade-long, $8.2 billion effort to kill it off...
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