Le FMI responsable d’une résurgence de la
tuberculose (VO)
Selon une
équipe de chercheurs britanniques, les politiques d’ajustements structurels
exigées par le FMI auraient contribué à la résurgence de la tuberculose en ex
Union Soviétique et en Europe de l’Est.
« Les prêts du FMI ne semblent pas avoir apporté une aide à une situation
sanitaire dégradée ; ils apparaissent plutôt avoir contribué à cette
situation, » écrivent les auteurs de l’étude.
Michael Kahn, Reuters, 21 juillet 2008
Austerity measures attached to
International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans may have contributed to a resurgence in
tuberculosis in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
researchers said on Tuesday.
Governments may be reducing
funding for health services such as hospitals and clinics to meet strict IMF
economic targets, the British researchers said.
The study, published in the Public
Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine, found that countries participating in
IMF programmes had seen tuberculosis death rates increase by at least 17
percent between 1991 and 2000 — equivalent to more than 100,000 additional
deaths. About one million new cases were recorded during the same period.
Nations that received money from
other institutions with less restrictive economic conditions attached had seen
a nearly 8 percent drop in tuberculosis death rates, David Stuckler and
colleagues at the University
of Cambridge said.
"IMF lending did not appear
to be a response to worsened health outcomes ; rather, it appeared to be a
precipitant of such outcomes," they wrote.
But an IMF spokesman questioned
whether the study took into account the instability following the break-up of
the Soviet Union, and said it takes time for
the disease to develop so the mortality rates could be linked to something
previously.
"If the IMF had not stepped
in to help the post-communist countries, the declines in health spending would
likely have been more pronounced and disease generally more severe," IMF
spokesman William Murray said in an email.
Tuberculosis is an infectious
bacterial disease typically attacking the lungs that kills an estimated 1.6
million each year around the world.
The emergence and spread of
drug-resistant germs makes treating it much harder and could make the disease
even deadlier. Parts of the former Soviet Union
are some of the hardest hit by drug-resistant TB.
The researchers used a statistical
model to compare tuberculosis rates for 21 post-Communist countries along with
the timing and length of IMF loans to other lending programmes.
Even when considering population
changes, war, inflation and other factors that can lead to new cases, the
researchers found that rising TB rates correlated closely to when IMF funding
began.
The size of a loan and length of
time a country participated were also important, according to the study that
analyzed IMF programmes in the region and TB rates between 1991 and 2000.
"We tested a lot of competing
explanations and none could account for the patterns," Stuckler said in a
telephone interview. "We are not saying the IMF loans are the only
determinant but they help explain some of the patterns."