Ebola kills far fewer than Aids, TB and malaria. What should we prioritize?
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The Guardian has published an article by Bjorn Lomborg which reports on the findings from our research on post-2015 health targets in regard to infectious diseases.
Ebola got most of the attention in 2014. It killed about 8,000 people. Meanwhile, over the same period of time about 3.6 million people died from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with the poorest people suffering the most. The good news is that tackling these diseases turn out to be an extraordinary good investment.
It may sound cold-hearted to set health priorities based on cost-effectiveness, but it’s actually the best way to do the most good in the world with limited resources. 193 governments are working on a set of priorities for the world to focus on by 2030, and the final list will be decided in New York by September 2015. To help the right decisions to be made, my think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, has asked more than sixty teams of top economists to assess some of the key targets which have been proposed and make a case for which should be part of the final list.
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