President's Global Health Initiative proposed
Greater focus on R&D needed
Last month, President Obama released the initial proposed details of the new US Global Health Initiative (GHI)—a six-year, $63 billion commitment to global health—for comment by global health stakeholders. At its core, the GHI will focus on improving health for women and girls, as well as boosting country ownership of programs. The GHI also aims to improve monitoring and evaluation, strengthen health systems, and enhance coordination and partnerships. In addition, the GHI lists research and innovation as one of its priorities, with a focus on operational and implementation research.
While applauding the inclusion of operational and implementation research as critical components of the GHI, members of the global health community have responded with support for a broader characterization of research to include innovation for the development of new global health tools and products (see responses from the global health community below). The United States has historically championed innovation for new products as a crucial component of its response to global health, and this commitment must be sustained and elevated.
Innovation for new health tools
Unfortunately, existing prevention and treatment options are often insufficient to address emerging problems such as drug resistance and outdated diagnostics. In addition, many of the most intractable global health diseases have no vaccines, and no treatments are available for some of the most prevalent tropical diseases.
To ensure that the fight against health threats such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis, and diarrheal diseases is successful, the United States should expand the GHI to include innovation for new technologies such as drugs, vaccines, microbicides, diagnostics, and devices. Public-private partnerships have historically played an important role in accomplishing this work and should continue to be utilized as a key mechanism for developing new global health products. These partnerships combine the public sector’s commitment to improving global health with the private sector’s ability to effectively guide new products through clinical development phases.
Greater coordination of US agencies
The global health community has not only called for the GHI to include innovation surrounding products but has also highlighted how the United States should better coordinate the global health work carried out by its agencies. The United States helps to create new global health products through several agencies, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Defense (DOD), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Because each agency brings complementary strengths and expertise to international health research endeavors, members of the global health community encouraged any global health-related cross-agency committees to include all of these agencies and focus on product development and delivery.
Global health technologies play a critical role in achieving GHI goals. From protecting new mothers from postpartum hemorrhage, to developing new and more affordable malaria treatments, to making progress against neglected tropical diseases, new health tools will not only help women and girls—the GHI's focus population—but have the potential to save a wide range of vulnerable groups globally. A strengthened dedication to global health research is urgent to achieving health gains across the world.
Additional resources:
US Global Health Initiative consultation document
GHTC members' response to the Global Health Initiative (594 KB PDF)
Global Health Council's response to the Global Health Initiative (204 KB PDF)
