Citation, summary and a comment from me below.
CITATION: Global investments in pandemic preparedness and COVID-19: development assistance and domestic spending on health between 1990 and 2026
Global Burden of Disease 2021 Health Financing Collaborator Network
Lancet Global Health 2023
Open Access Published:January 24, 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00007-4
SUMMARY
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in health surveillance systems, disease prevention, and treatment globally. Among the many factors that might have led to these gaps is the issue of the financing of national health systems, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), as well as a robust global system for pandemic preparedness. We aimed to provide a comparative assessment of global health spending at the onset of the pandemic; characterise the amount of development assistance for pandemic preparedness and response disbursed in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic; and examine expectations for future health spending and put into context the expected need for investment in pandemic preparedness.
Methods: In this analysis of global health spending between 1990 and 2021, and prediction from 2021 to 2026, we estimated four sources of health spending: development assistance for health (DAH), government spending, out-of-pocket spending, and prepaid private spending across 204 countries and territories...
Findings: In 2019, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, US$9·2 trillion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 9·1–9·3) was spent on health worldwide... That same year, $43·1 billion in development assistance was provided to maintain or improve health...
Interpretation: There was an unprecedented scale-up in DAH in 2020 and 2021. We have a unique opportunity at this time to sustain funding for crucial global health functions, including pandemic preparedness. However, historical patterns of underfunding of pandemic preparedness suggest that deliberate effort must be made to ensure funding is maintained.
COMMENT (NPW): The paper does not mention the issues of improving the availability of reliable healthcare information and protecting people from misinformation. The paper is supported by the Gates Foundation. I am reminded of the Lancet paper back in 2006 that called on the Gates Foundation to address the global challenge of healthcare information: 'the challenge stares us plainly in the face... to ensure that everyone in the world can have access to clean, clear, knowledge - a basic human right, and a public health need as important as access to clean, clear, water, and much more easily achievable'.
Dr Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator
Healthcare Information For All
Global Healthcare Information Network
Working in Official Relations with the World Health Organization
20,000 members, 400 supporting organisations, 180 countries, 6 forums, 4 languages
www.hifa.org neil@hifa.org
