Monitoring Financial Flows for Health Research 2008

Abstract

"Research has a vital role to play in overcoming these health disparities. It helps to understand the root causes, to create solutions and to test and refi ne these. In 1998, the Global Forum for Health Research was established, founded on the recognition that too little research was being devoted to the health problems of poor and disadvantaged populations and given a mission to increase the research required to tackle these problems. Th e need for such research grows ever more pressing. At the mid-• point to the target date of 2015 for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, many low- and middle-income countries are off track and there are particularly serious concerns about the poor progress with the Millennium Development Goals aiming to decrease maternal and child mortality as well as diffi culties in sustaining the momentum in combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases. Millions of people die every year from a range of communicable diseases – including malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and a range of tropical parasitic infections that are often referred to as “neglected diseases” – for which better drugs, vaccines and diagnostics are still needed and which disproportionately aff ect some of the poorest countries in the world."(pg xi)