Every minute, five African children die from diseases like pneumonia, malaria, and AIDS. Most of these deaths could be prevented with timely treatments. Unfortunately, millions of people in Africa and other developing regions lack access to such care.
The World Health Assembly -- the annual meeting of global health ministers that sets direction for the World Health Organization -- is currently meeting in Geneva to tackle such health challenges. Members have already started discussing how to increase access to medicines and vaccines in the developing world. Many of their proposals are practical and could make a real difference. But some are wrongheaded, such as the idea that weakening intellectual property protections for pharmaceuticals will improve health care.
To the contrary, effective protection of patents and other intellectual property is essential to achieving ambitious global health goals. Such protections, like patents, incentivize researchers to create new drugs, thereby increasing people's access to cutting-edge medicines that save lives. Health leaders meeting in Geneva should work to strengthen these protections, even as they tackle the many real barriers to care in the developing world.
This task is formidable, especially given the great health disparity between the developing world and Europe.
Consider that in Somalia, one in 100 children under the age of five dies from a lower respiratory infection like pneumonia or bronchitis. In Sweden, less than one in 100,000 dies from the same infections.
So what are the real obstacles standing between patients and the medicines they need? Part of the problem is a severe doctor shortage in the developing world. Africa has about one doctor for every 5,000 people. Switzerland, where the World Health Assembly convenes, has 21 doctors for every 5,000 people. Sub-Saharan Africa will face a shortfall of 4.3 million healthcare workers by 2035, largely due to a lack of training programs.
Similarly, many developing countries don't have enough hospital beds to adequately care for their populations. Niger has only one hospital bed per 10,000 people. By contrast, the Czech Republic has nearly 90 per 10,000 residents.
Inadequate transportation infrastructure exacerbates these shortages and makes it harder to deliver care to vulnerable communities. Austria, for instance, has 28 times as many kilometers of major roadways as Cambodia. It's a logistical nightmare to ship medicines to remote villages. Without refrigerated trucks, medicines and vaccines often spoil in transit.
Poor sanitation practices make this dire situation even worse. A staggering 35 percent of healthcare facilities in 54 low- and middle-income countries don't have enough soap and water for patients and providers to wash their hands, according to the WHO. Handwashing is one of the best and cheapest ways to prevent the spread of disease.
To improve health care in developing countries, the WHO must address these deficiencies. The developing world needs help training more doctors, building more roads and hospitals, and teaching disease prevention habits.
Revolutionary new medicines can also help end endemic diseases in these countries. Right now, scientists are developing hundreds of medicines and vaccines for malaria, bacterial diarrhea, HIV, and other diseases that primarily afflict the developing world.
The WHO claims it recognizes the importance of this pharmaceutical innovation. The World Health Assembly's recent agenda identifies 11 main challenges, including the need for more "needs-based research, development, and innovation."
Yet global health leaders meeting in Geneva risk getting mired in polarizing disputes about intellectual property protections. Instead of looking for practical solutions, the agenda might get hijacked by ideologues who question the very concept of intellectual property.
This is unfortunate. Intellectual property is the cornerstone of medical innovation. It takes significant resources over many years to develop a new drug. Only 12 percent of experimental medicines that enter clinical trials actually make it to the market.
Protections such as patents allow drug-makers to recoup some of their massive investments while encouraging them to invest in future innovation.
A lopsided focus on patent protections also misses the point. IP rights don't impair developing countries' access to medicines, as some have claimed. Indeed, more than nine out of ten drugs on the WHO's list of "essential medicines" are already off-patent.
To increase access to medicines in the developing world, the WHO must confront all the complex factors preventing better health outcomes, not fixate on IP. It's time for a new approach. We must do more to make sure every patient can get the medicines they need. The lives of millions are at stake.
Jan Fischer is the former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. The views expressed are the author's own.
