Call for more investment in public health sector

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 14. Eminent economist, Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs, today emphasised the need for more investment in the public health sector. The present level of one per cent of the GDP was grossly inadequate, he said, delivering a public lecture here.

It was time the close link between health and social and economic development was fully realised. There were very clear evidences from all over the world that societies with better health indicators, such as infant mortality rates, and life expectancies were also better off in terms of their per capita incomes, population growths and other such economical and social parameters, he said.

Prof. Sachs, who works as the Director of the Centre for International Development at Harvard, also emphasised the need to strengthen the science and technology infrastructure in India as, he said, the technologies generated in the U.S., Europe, Japan and other parts of the developed world, may not be wholly appropriate to it, at least not without further R&D, in critical areas such as health, environment, agriculture and power.

Prof. Sachs is here in connection with the meeting of an international commission on macro-economics and health, which has been recently set up by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to act as a source of advice and analysis for the WHO and the broader development community on how health relates to macro- economic and development issues. He is the chairman of the 16- member panel, which comprises primarily developmental economists and leading figures in global science, drawn from different parts of the world.

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Section  : National
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