Effective preventive programmes and good access to appropriate medical care diminish the burden of ill health and early death substantially and contribute to efforts to reduce poverty. A number of countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa have shown this to be so. It is easy to forget their experience when faced with the poor performance of many national health systems. Facilities, health workers and drugs are not enough. Many countries have constructed networks of health facilities and trained large numbers of health workers.
Drugs are widely available.
In most localities, poor access to health care is not due to the absence of services. It reflects poor quality and high cost, a lack of mechanisms to insure against major illness and the simple inability of poor people to pay for health care. Improvements in health and health services can be reversed. The discovery of antibiotics and many effective medical technologies led to complacency during the second half of the 20 th Century. We came to expect that health would inevitably improve around the world.