IT is welcome to see the UK Government propose funds to combat disease in the developing world, as put forward by Gordon Brown and Clare Short.
The Ministers also rightly target the multi-national pharmaceutical companies. These spend just 10 per cent of their research money on illnesses affecting 90 per cent of the world's population, and still restrict development of cheaper medicines locally, through use of World Trade Organisation regulations.
What is also necessary - for all governments in the developed world - is to support the infrastructure which would enable children to grow up in an all-round healthy environment.
This means clean water, adequate housing, employment opportunities, and an absence of war and starvation.
It means ending developing world debt so that countries can afford public services such as health and education.
It means tackling the global anti-health forces, such as the multi-nationals who aspire to run the world and who are flooding developing countries with such products as arms and tobacco.
Health is more than the absence of disease.
JOHN NICHOLSON,
Chief Executive,
UK Public Health Association, e-mail john@ukpha.org.uk
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