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Condom Social Marketing, Bednets Seen as Having Great Health Impact Two of the principal tools that PSI uses in many of its social marketing programs were praised recently in the national news media as being effective in dramatically improving global health:
The Washington Post article reported that the WHO and several U.N. agencies are calling for a major new push against malaria, TB and AIDS—three infections that killed 5.7 million people last year and accounted for one-tenth of the world’s deaths. The WHO report said that it is possible to reduce deaths from malaria and TB by half by 2010 and deaths from AIDS by one-quarter. "Much of the new report consists of descriptions of successful programs in many countries that could be greatly expanded," the article reported. "Two that are particularly strongly recommended are the use of insecticide-treated bednets to prevent bites from mosquitoes carrying malaria and use of a standardized six-month course of TB treatment called Directly-Observed Therapy, Short Course." The article points out that only 5 percent of children in malarial areas sleep under nets, which have been shown to cut childhood mortality from malaria by 25 percent. PSI presently markets ITNs in 11 countries in Africa and South America. In 2001, it marketed ITNs providing almost 2 million person-years of malaria protection, more than double the coverage of the previous year. It also marketed 658,182 kits for retreatment of the ITNs, an increase of 62% from the previous year. The article also makes an interesting point about sustainability of such efforts. The argument against subsidizing ITNs has been that subsidies could not be sustained unless rich nations were prepared to provide funding indefinitely. The article points out that a new theory, supported by various economic analyses, is that that these diseases are not only the product of poverty; they also create poverty. "You don't need to sustain it (donations from wealthy countries) indefinitely...Healthy people can get themselves out of poverty," David L. Heymann, head of communicable disease programs at WHO is quoted as saying. At the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates and U2 leader and international activist Bono called on government, industry and not-for-profits to substantially increase and sustain development funding for global health. Gates built his case for increased health expenditures by pointing to global health statistics but also cited specific examples of how "low-cost, high-impact health interventions can dramatically improve health." He specifically cited condom social marketing as one of those: "More than 60 million people have been infected with HIV. HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa...At the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people globally were living with HIV. Yet, condoms are inexpensive (ranging from 3 to 40 cents per condom) and effective social marketing campaigns have been proven to generate 5- to 6-fold increases in condom sales and use in developing countries," he said in his comments. PSI currently has condom social marketing projects in 54 developing countries. Other low-cost, high-impact interventions he cited included tetanus inoculations, vaccination packages and traditional malaria treatment. "We find ourselves at a unique moment in history," added Gates. "Expert consensus is developing that increasing health spending is essential not only to improve the health of the world’s poorest people but also to promoting economic and social progress," said Gates. —David J. Olson, Senior Manager for Public Affairs, PSI/Washington
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