An editorial in The New York Times this week has it right in the last line – the world needs to focus on improving health systems and not just undertake one-off approaches to curbing diseases. The disastrous interaction of malaria and HIV causes more infections, sickness and death. I’ve just returned from Eastern and Southern Africa where we visited enterprises concerned with both diseases. I’ll post some excerpts from my journal in the coming weeks, but wanted to flag this important finding – and hope that our conclusion is to think more broadly about what it will take to deliver high quality and affordable health products and services to the poor.
So true; We need to focus on whole systems rather than just one disease or issue. Another link in the disease cycle is poor water quality and sanitation. Its hard to prevent the spread of disease when the care givers don’t have access to clean water. Of course providing clean water without sanitation just continues to recycle the problems.
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