Prof. Sachs to Chair Global Health Commision

Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey D. Sachs '76 finds it alarming that the current aid flow for international health care is about $5 billion--spread between five billion poor people worldwide.

"Given how rich we are, more could be done," Sachs said.

As the newly appointed chair of the global Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (CMH), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), Sachs is now in a position to explore how to lessen gap between "the haves and the have-nots" and raise awareness about the importance of public heath in the international community.

"The Commission's task is enormous, but easily described: to help put global public health at the center of a new strategy of global economic development," Sachs wrote in an opinion piece he has submitted to newspapers.

Sachs, who will be jetting off to New Delhi this spring for an upcoming CMH meeting, said his colleagues will focus their two-year study on three main areas: possible economic benefits of health care investments, cost-effective intervention methods and the improvement of poor countries' access to medical technology.

He suggested canceling debts for the poorest countries as a possible option that CMH will investigate.

Sachs said there is also controversy surrounding what role the world's pharmaceutical companies should play in helping poorer countries.

Many believe that the companies have too much monopoly power and should offer lower costs to poorer patients as well as allot more funding and research toward drugs and vaccines for illnesses plaguing lesser-developed countries.

Sachs cites malaria as a prime example. One to two million people die from the disease each year, but the amount spent on research is no more than 40 to 50 million dollars, he said.

"[The pharmaceutical companies] don't see a market in it," Sachs said.

One of the CMH's goals will be to find a way to create incentives for the world's scientific community to invest in helping solve the health problems of poorer countries.

In addition to generating more funding for health care from richer countries, Sachs said the CMH will also seek to advise the governments of poor countries to focus more of their own incomes on dealing with health issues.

Sachs said that in Bangladesh, less than 1 percent of the national income is spent on health, an astonishingly low value.

The CMH is split into six working groups, each of which is scheduled to submit two volumes of studies to the WHO by the middle of 2001. The commission will issue its final report by the end of that year.

"We're not charged with any implementation," Sachs said, "so we're trying to make as persuasive a case as possible about what should be done."

In addition to his trip to India in April, Sachs is planning a visit to Africa later in the year.

But Sachs said his new appointment will not require a leave of absence from his responsibilities at Harvard.

Aside from teaching, Sachs is also the director of the research-oriented Center for International Development (CID), co-chair of one of the Kennedy School of Government's masters degree programs and chair of an advisory council on international studies.

He admits his new job will contribute to a "heavy load" but "right now, I'm planning to do it in the course of current work," he said.

Sachs said he also hopes a number of people from around the University in the economics department, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), and CID will be able to help contribute to CMH's study.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to do something useful for very poor people," Sachs said.