at a European level alone, it would generate around 57 billion euros (81 billion dollars) per year. “Through our work, we have seen how key interventions in health can change both lives”
Rome – The Financial Transaction Tax (TTF), a topic of discussion at the G20 underway this week in Cannes, could help save millions of lives if a percentage is allocated to global health, as shown by the new report by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) ) “Five Lives”, published on the occasion of the international summit.
“Through our work, we have seen how key interventions in health can change both lives and the trajectories of the most urgent health needs,” said Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of MSF’s Campaign for Access to Medicines. “It is time for global health to be saved”.
Implementing a tax at one European level alone would yield around 57 billion euros ($ 81 billion) per year. If the G20 countries also activated taxation, tens of billions more would be raised. Even a fraction of that sum would represent a significant boost to address global health crises: according to the World Health Organization, for example, only an extra $ 1.5 billion would be needed to effectively prevent, diagnose and treat. tuberculosis in 2012.
The funds could also be used to prevent a child from becoming severely malnourished, to protect children from deadly measles epidemics, to prevent a child from contracting HIV at birth, to ensure that people receive safe treatments as soon as possible. – life against tuberculosis, or to save lives by drastically reducing the spread of HIV through treatment.
“Given that governments are progressively scaling back external aid, there is no excuse for not allocating part of the funds from a financial transaction tax to health needs in developing countries,” said
Sharonnann Lynch, head of HIV / AIDS for MSF’s Campaign for Access to Drugs. “A financial transaction tax would provide us with the predictable and sustainable funds we need now more than ever.”
The idea of a financial transaction tax is gaining political ground at a time when global health is being challenged by cutbacks. Funding for HIV, for example, collapsed for the first time in 2009, and again in 2010. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria was forced to skip a year of subsidies for HIV. first time in history, due to a serious financial shortfall.
Funding from a transaction tax could help bridge the gaps between what is needed and what is actually given, thereby helping countries diagnose more TB patients, use better treatment protocols for malaria, or provide more more patients get HIV treatment.
Recent studies show how HIV treatments can also help prevent new infections. According to UNAIDS, 7 million lives could be saved and 12 million new infections avoided by 2020 if treatments were effectively spread now. “There are gaps in global health funding that could easily be filled with money from a financial transaction tax,” Lynch concludes.
“It is time to invest in real lives and in the future”. The MSF report “Five Lives: a Financial Transaction Tax Could Support Global Health” describes, through five personal stories, the positive impact that the assignment of a tax on financial transactions could represent to global health.