25 June 2020

This posting is an excerpt from my second article in the Public Health Priorities series, Funding for Disease Control.

Disease management is suddenly a household topic due to COVID-19. But what are the normal priorities of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other disease control organizations.

How much funding is available for disease control?

The US CDC is the largest disease control organization in the world, with an annual budget of US $7.5 B. Figure 2 shows how the US CDC’s budget dwarfs the other organizations.

The WHO comes next in size, with an annual budget of $2.2 (based on a 2-year budget of $4.4 B). The WHO’s budget in 2018-2019 was only 29% of US CDC’s budget.

The Indian National CDC has a budget of over $1 M, followed by PAHO with $676 M. The European CDC has a budget one-tenth the size ($65 M), while the Africa CDC started with a budget of $7 M and 20 staff, though its 2020 budget is $13 M, or one-fifth of the ECDC’s.

How should global disease control funds be spent?

The WHO reported 57 million (57 M) deaths worldwide in 2016. The top causes, representing 54% of all deaths, were: heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, diabetes, lung cancer, Alzheimer’s, tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, and road injuries.

Should these figures guide priorities? What about during the COVID-19 pandemic? Some might argue that the entire budget of the WHO and other organizations should be turned over to COVID-19 health care services and vaccine development.

On the other hand, what about less common issues, such as preventing birth defects? Or less well-known issues, such as improving water sanitation (WASH) so people do not get cholera (which can kill a healthy adult within hours), diarrhea or typhoid? Increasing vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) to prevent future illnesses and health care costs as well as enable people to work and earn an income? Identifying effective treatments for Alzheimer’s to improve quality of life for millions in their older years?

You can read more about ROIs for measles, polio and COVID-19 as well as the amount of funding allocated for pandemic-related activities in my article Funding for Disease Control.