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CAIRO – 18 July 2017: The World Health Organization (WHO) published on Monday the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) “Health Price Tag” report. The report provides an estimation of the cost and benefits of investing in health services to achieve the SDG health targets in 67 low and middle-income countries accounting for 75 percent of the world’s population, according the WHO official website.
The report includes analysis on targets related to the third SDG, “Health and Well-being,” as well as targets from the second goal, “Zero Hunger;” the sixth goal, “Clean Water and Sanitation;” and the seventh goal, “Affordable and Clean Energy.” Some targets and diseases were excluded because of the difficulty of estimating their associated costs and health impact, or due to lack of data.
The SDG “Health Price Tag” is intended as a tool to inform countries on further research and does not prescribe what countries should spend on health. It also highlights that achieving universal health coverage and the other health targets requires not only funding, but political will, including policy reform and respect for human rights.
Furthermore, the report shows that investing in health could prevent 97 million premature deaths globally until 2030, including more than 50 million infants and children and 20 million deaths resulting from non-communicable diseases. It also shows that investing in health would add 8.4 years of life expectancy.
The SDG “Health Price Tag” models two scenarios. The first is an “ambitious” scenario, in which investments are sufficient for countries to achieve the SDG’s health targets by 2030. This scenario would require increasing investments over time, from an initial $134 billion annually to $371 billion, or $58 per person, by 2030. The other scenario is a “progress” scenario, in which countries achieve two thirds or more of the targets and would require new investments, increasing from an initial $104 billion a year to $274 billion, or $41 per person, by 2030.
In both scenarios, health system investments, such as employing more health workers; building and operating new clinics, hospitals and laboratories; and buying medical equipment, account for about 75 percent of the total, while the remaining costs are for medicines, vaccines, syringes and other commodities used to prevent or treat specific diseases, and for activities such as training, health campaigns and outreach to vulnerable communities.
The analysis shows that 85 percent of these costs can be met with domestic resources, although as many as 32 of the world’s poorest countries will face an annual gap of up to $54 billion and will continue to need external assistance. High-income countries were not included in the analysis, but other estimates show they can all afford to provide universal health coverage with essential health services to their citizens.
WHO will update these estimates every five years to include other health-related targets and diseases as more evidence becomes available.
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