Infectious Diseases: What is the smartest SDG target?

As of late December, 7,373 people have died from the Ebola virus, 99% of which have occurred in three West-African countries Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It is a terrible affliction, but there are other diseases that are much more deadly.

According to the WHO, the latest yearly figures indicate that in these three countries, 5,625 have died from malaria, 7,900 from tuberculosis (TB) and 11,200 from HIV/AIDS. Of course, across the world these numbers are vastly greater with global annual deaths for each disease at 584,000 for malaria and approximately 1.5 million each for TB and HIV/AIDS.

As reported in The Guardian, there are effective, clear strategies and targets that would dramatically reduce the burden of these deadly diseases.

For malaria, the recommendation is to reduce resistance to artemisinin – the primary drug treatment for malaria – by using combination therapies, while providing bed-nets to reduce infection. Each dollar invested returns $36 in benefits.

For TB, the author suggests intensifying efforts to identify TB carriers, particularly among those co-infected with HIV, while scaling up treatment to both regular and drug-resistant strains of TB. Each dollar invested returns $43 in benefits.

For HIV/AIDS, to get the best bang-for-buck the authors suggest focusing on hyper-endemic (15%+ of adult population infected) regions in Africa, and in particular those with the weakest immune systems. By providing treatment to the most susceptible, and also circumcising 90% of HIV-negative men, we can return $10 and $28 respectively, for every dollar spent.

You can read all the papers on infectious diseases here and download the one page PDF here.