[afro-nets] WHO gets go-ahead for health system research

[Dieter Neuvians MD <neuvians@mweb.co.za>]

WHO gets go-ahead for health system research
--------------------------------------------
 
By Robert Walgate
27 May 2005
 
Source: RealHealthNews 
http://www.globalforumhealth.org/realhealthnews/RealHealth.php
 
[GENEVA] Proposals endorsed last year by the world's health min-
isters to increase global spending on research into the provi-
sion of the health services have been endorsed by the World 
Health Assembly (WHA), the body that governs the World Health 
Organization (WHO).
 
Representatives of the 192 nations represented on the WHA gave 
their backing on Wednesday (25 May) to a recommendation that was 
initially approved by the 58-country Ministerial Health Research 
Summit, held in Mexico in November 2004.
 
As a result, the WHO has been given the green light to introduce 
research components into major health policy initiatives and 
policy actions, such as polio eradication. It is also actively 
encouraged to strengthen coordination of health research policy 
among its existing research activities.
 
These include the special programmes of Research and Training in 
Tropical Diseases (TDR), the initiative for Vaccine Research 
(IVR), as well as the work of the International Agency for Re-
search on Cancer (IARC), the Advisory Committee on Health Re-
search (ACHR), and the WHO's Department of Research Policy and 
Cooperation (RPC).
 
Efforts to increase public support for research into health sys-
tems is widely seen as complementing other efforts in the bio-
medical research field, such as Grand Challenges in Global 
Health, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
 
The Gates initiative is primarily intended to encourage biomedi-
cal researchers to develop new physical health technologies, and 
Gates himself berated the WHA last week for its inaction on 
building up the systems to put such technologies into practice 
(see Health systems: orphans of research).
 
The resolution also encourages governments to take similar ac-
tion at a national level. Last November, the minister of health 
in the Philippines told RealHealthNews that solid research into 
health systems would enable him to strengthen his arguments in 
cabinet for funds to improve his health system, and thus raise 
the health of the people of the Philippines.
 
The resolution approved last week by the WHA also calls for a 
central "portal" in Geneva for registering all clinical trials. 
Although this recommendation had been approved by health minis-
ters at the Mexico meeting, it had been fiercely resisted by the 
pharmaceutical industry.
 
Industry critics claim that this is partly because trials show-
ing negative findings on drugs are often suppressed. But the 
central register was finally accepted as a fait accompli by the 
International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Asso-
ciations, IFPMA, during a technical committee meeting at the 
WHA.
 
In a rearguard action, companies will create their own parallel 
register. But WHO officials say they will be required to meet 
agreed standards of ethics and openness.
 
This article is based on a report in the current issue of Real-
HealthNews:
http://www.globalforumhealth.org/realhealthnews/RealHealth.php