The international public health sector comprises the World Health Organization (WHO), a growing bevy of other international health agencies and numerous non-governmental organizations and foundations. Ostensibly its role is to support global society in maintaining overall health. By WHO’s definition, health is the ‘physical, mental and social wellbeing’ of all people, in equal measure. For reasons of promoting equality and human rights, the sector focuses on populations in low-income countries where life expectancies are lower and resources most limited. Various rules on conflict of interest, together with the traditional unprofitability of poor people’s healthcare, had once kept the private sector mostly uninvolved and uninterested. WHO’s lifeblood funding was restricted to assessed national contributions of its Member States.
Over the past two decades, the growth of mass vaccination has provided a viable way to extract profit from the healthcare of these low-income populations. Reflecting this, private interests and corporations have become keen to fund WHO’s work. These sources follow a ‘directed funding’ model through which they specify how and where their sponsorship will be used.
There is no altruism, only profit.