Poverty-Related Diseases
There are daily 35,000 people dying on diseases such as AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and 17 other neglected tropical diseases as listed by the World Health Organization (WHO). On its own, Tuberculosis and Malaria cause the death of 3 million people every year. The reason for poverty-related and neglected diseases are amongst others the lack in access to newly and highly needed vaccines. Especially the poorest countries in the world are affected.
In our advocacy work, we campaign for increased and improved innovation for the advancement of combating poverty-related and neglected diseases . A ground-breaking and successful model is the so called Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) which unite successful the commitment of the public sector for global public health supplies with the expertise and the entrepreneurial mission of the private sector.
DSW Berlin: Innovative Instruments to Fight Poverty-Related and Neglected Diseases
- Bild: Iris Möker / DRK
In the political dialogue with decision makers, DSW raises awareness of the topic of poverty-related and neglected diseases. To this end, we maintain a constant exchange not only with the Federal Government and members of the Bundestag, but also with representatives from industry, science and research as well as other non-governmental organisations.
The Berlin office of DSW works very closely with the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in order to ensure the political and financial support of the German government for research activities in the field of poverty-related and neglected diseases. Together with national and international partners, we have been able to achieve that Germany has in 2011 adopted a funding framework for neglected and poverty-associated diseases with a focus on child and maternal health. One aspect of this funding framework is the support of so-called Product Development Partnerships.
To increase the amount of attention given to the topic, we regularly organise events to bring together decision-makers and experts. To this end, we organised a symposium "PDP Research for Health Goods in Developing Countries" at the World Health Conference in 2010. Public-Private Partnerships offer great opportunities in the fight against poverty-related and neglected diseases. In May 2011 we brought the development ministry and the research ministry with representatives of international organizations, product development partnerships, governments and civil society at the conference “Public-Private Partnerships in Advancing Global Health - A Development Approach for Germany” together at one table.
In close consultation with our East African country offices and based on the experiences from our own development projects we always keep track of local needs.
