Worldwide Eradication Goals May Conflict With Local Health Priorities.(Brief Article)

2001 JUN 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by N.R. Saltmarsh, staff medical writer - When it comes to health care, what works in the industrialized world may not work in poorer countries, a fact that isn't necessarily apparent until common health care goals are applied worldwide.

That's what the World Health Organization (WHO) is attempting to do by intensifying vaccination programs to eradicate poliomyelitis and eventually measles, a goal that is perhaps realistic, but might not jibe with the health care priorities - and economies - of some developing nations.

B. Schreuder and a colleague at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam looked at the implications of high routine immunization coverage, surveillance, and, in particular, national immunization days (NIDs) encouraged by global eradication programs.

"There has been a lively debate on whether poor countries, with many health problems that could be controlled, should divert their limited resources for a global goal of eradication that may have low priority for their children," explained Schreuder and coworkers.

They observed that that although NIDs normally are economically justifiable, they may in some locales divert resources and possibly development of better health care in general.

In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, average routine immunization rates have dropped since the introduction of NIDs in 1996, a trend that has not been observed in other regions.