
The UK's own global health security depends on continued investment in disease research
Behind each one of the numbers is a person, a family, a community whose lives have been saved or changed for the better. We believe that as one of the richest nations in the world, the UK has an ethical responsibility to take a lead on breakthroughs in neglected diseases.
But the case for continued support and investment is much stronger than just ethical responsibility; there are widespread and measurable economic and social benefits not only in the countries where these diseases occur but in the UK itself.
A new report, by Impact Global Health in collaboration with Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, found that the UK directly benefits from R&D investment into diseases like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.
It shows that the UK economy would gain an additional boost of £7.7 billion and 4,000 additional jobs by 2040 from public funding of neglected disease R&D. Some £6 billion has already been gained but around £1.5 billion, equivalent to an average of £100 million a year, is yet to be felt and is contingent on funding being sustained.
And the benefits to the UK of investment in global health do not stop there.
Now is the time for bold action
Covid-19, and the West African Ebola epidemic demonstrated that infections don't recognise geographic borders. Nobody is safe from future pandemics until everybody has access to effective diagnostics, drugs and treatments and robust health systems.
Put simply: the UK's own global health security depends on continued investment in this early pipeline of global health R&D.
Yet 2025 has been a challenging year for global health – with significant cuts announced to critical funding internationally and continued uncertainty about future investment. Already, many projects have been forced to pause or stop, causing a direct negative impact on the people and communities which are most in need.
In an age where there are multiple calls on government and other budgets, global health R&D could be seen, mistakenly, as an easy target. But the impact of R&D funding in the UK and across the globe should not be underestimated.
This latest research clearly shows how this funding has already significantly improved health outcomes and positively impacted individual lives and wider society. We must keep this momentum to realise these benefits into the future.
There is a very real risk that funding cuts now or in the future will reduce the impact of what has already been achieved and will lose the opportunity to develop new products, save even more lives and create even more sustained economic benefit. Any reduction in investment could rapidly unravel the substantial progress made to date, leaving future advances in life-saving interventions in jeopardy.
Now is the time for bold action to protect critical investment in this area. Every pound of funding lost will negatively impact the UK economy, make the UK more vulnerable to future pandemics, and most importantly, expose the most vulnerable communities around the world to greater health threats.
The UK has been a leader in funding and conducting research and development targeted at neglected diseases over the last two decades. Along with saving countless lives within some of the world's poorest communities, that investment has had real health and economic benefits in the UK.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Metro
5 hours ago
- Metro
'I'm a medic in Gaza - the suffering is ten times anything I've ever witnessed'
A British paramedic volunteering at a field hospital in Gaza has described the suffering as 'unlike anything I've seen' in frontline healthcare. Sam Sears said a voluntary team with UK-Med is responding to starvation and the aftermath of mass casualty incidents involving civilians. He spoke from the humanitarian medical charity's tented facility in Al-Mawasi, a strip of land by the Mediterranean, a day after more than 100 aid agencies warned in a joint statement that 'mass starvation is spreading' across Gaza, with the UN-led humanitarian system in collapse. Sears told Metro: 'We are seeing lots of patients in the local area coming in with blast injuries, shrapnel wounds, gunshot wounds, poly trauma and we are also seeing a lot of malnourished, dehydrated patients. 'Normally we see patients after a food distribution point, we tend to get a lot of patients with those wounds soon after they happen. 'We are not sure of the why, where and when it happened, but they are coming in with gunshot wounds to all parts of the body and shrapnel from nearby explosions.' Pictures of starving Palestinians, some of them babies, have emerged from Gaza in the past weeks as the situation worsens by the hour. Accounts of the injuries from UK-Med volunteers align with separate reports of desperate civilians coming under fire from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as they try to reach the few aid locations in the territory. Israel has denied deliberately targeting civilians and has accused Hamas of looting aid so it can sell the produce and supply its war machine. 'It's unlike anything I've seen before,' Sears said. 'Especially like nothing I've seen in the UK, and I have worked in other areas like Sierra Leone for Ebola and Ukraine in the war but this here is completely different. It's like times ten here. 'We are struggling for food here at the moment, let alone national staff that are working with us who have had to manage this for the last 20 months.' David Wightwick, the non-governmental organisation's CEO, has described collecting food in Gaza as 'one of the most dangerous activities you could wish to imagine' and said that civilians are starving. He gave the example of an eight-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to the head who could not be saved, despite the medics' best efforts. 'When we have a mass casualty incident, it's where explosions happen nearby from a missile or something similar to that, and patients will arrive, three or four in the back in the car,' Sears said. 'We had one last week, a child who was dead on arrival along with his father, we believe, and countless patients severely critically injured, wounds that we had to treat very quickly.' The team has been working around the clock amid scarce supplies, including fuel, which is needed for the field hospital's own provision. Sears, who is on his first trip to Gaza, said: 'We are seeing in our hospitals and our primary health care centre we have in the north, it's very obvious we have got malnourishment in the community. 'We are seeing pregnant mothers who are struggling to continue as they become more unwell, because obviously they are carrying as well, so that's an issue. We can buy certain things from the market but it's very scarce, it's also costing quadruple or more than what it normally would. 'A kilogram of sugar at the minute is costing $130, so it's just extortionate.' Sears, 44, from Northamptonshire, works for the East Midlands Ambulance Service but is one of hundreds of NHS medics who volunteer for the charity as emergency responders in crisis zones worldwide. He said that he is part of a 'very good' team where there are regular debriefs as well as feedback after patients undergo surgery. The field hospital, one of two operated by the charity in Gaza, is currently treating 500 people a day and incorporates an operating theatre for lifesaving surgical procedures. The paramedic told Metro that he is hoping for a ceasefire to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 'The ceasefire is needed, not just a pause but a permanent end to the hostilities,' he said. 'The people in Gaza have suffered immensely, they have got nowhere to call home. 'They are hungry, malnourished, the conflict needs to stop really. 'The healthcare and aid needs to come in for the 2.1 million people who it's needed for here.' More Trending Israel is 'evaluating' a revised response from Hamas to a proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said today. In a post on X, the IDF said: 'Terrorists fired a projectile that fell approx. 250 meters from an aid distribution site in Gaza. 'This site in Rafah is open today and tens of thousands of weekly food packages were distributed. 'Hamas and the other terrorist organizations will do anything to sabotage civilians from receiving aid.' MORE: The pictures that show the scale of 'mass starvation' in Gaza MORE: Aid worker's desperate voice message from Gaza: 'It's a disaster here, we can't breathe.' MORE: Doctor's heartbreaking decisions choosing which babies live or die in Gaza


Economist
5 hours ago
- Economist
Rethinking the war on AIDS
AIDS AND HIV, the virus that causes it, once sparked fear across the world. Apocalyptic forecasters in early 2002 reckoned that in some southern African countries half of new mothers would soon die of AIDS. Tens of millions of lives would be lost over coming decades. Economies would be devastated. Instead, what was arguably the most effective foreign-aid programme ever was introduced in 2003 by President George W. Bush.

Rhyl Journal
3 days ago
- Rhyl Journal
Changes to infected blood compensation scheme following outcry from victims
And the process has begun to create a 'long overdue' memorial for thousands of victims of the scandal, dubbed the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS. Earlier this month, the Infected Blood Inquiry made a series of recommendations to improve compensation for people who were both infected with contaminated blood and people affected as a result. Responding to the report, the Government said that it was immediately accepting a number of the recommendations and will consult on others. It is not rejecting any of the recommendations. And the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) announced it will accept all recommendations relating to the compensation authority. Earlier this month, the probe into the scandal said victims had been 'harmed further' by failures in the compensation scheme. Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the inquiry, said the number of people who have been compensated to date is 'profoundly unsatisfactory' as he called for 'faster and fairer' compensation for victims. He said all victims should be able to register for compensation and should not have to wait to be called forward to start their claim. The Inquiry's Additional Report calls for compensation to be fairer and faster. Read the report here: — Infected Blood Inquiry (@bloodinquiry) July 9, 2025 The IBCA confirmed it will create a registration process. The Government has also accepted a number of recommendations including: – Affected people's claims will not 'die with them' and their payments will be passed on to their estates; – People infected with HIV before 1982 will be compensated – they were previously ineligible; – The requirement for people with hepatitis to provide a date of diagnosis will be abolished. Meanwhile, it said it will consult on a number of issues including: how the scheme recognises the impact of interferon treatment for hepatitis which has been linked to severe side effects; how the scheme recognises severe psychological harm; and it will also consult on the scope of how victims of unethical research are to be compensated. Elsewhere, the Government announced further interim payments to the estates of people who have died. And it also confirmed that Clive Smith, president of the Haemophilia Society, will be the chairman of the Infected Blood Memorial Committee. Mr Smith will lead the work to create a national memorial to the victims of the scandal and will 'support memorials in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland'. Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said: 'When I appeared before the inquiry in May, I said that I would take a constructive approach and, carefully, consider the issues that had been put to me. 'I have concentrated on removing barriers to quicker compensation, working with IBCA, and am determined to deliver improvements based on this new report. 'Our focus as we move forward must be working together to not only deliver justice to all those impacted, but also to restore trust in the state to people who have been let down too many times.' In a statement to the Commons, Mr Thomas-Symonds told MPs he would go further than the inquiry's recommendation on affected states. He said: 'The inquiry recommended that where someone who would be an eligible affected person sadly died or dies between the 21 of May 2024 and 31 of December 2029, their claim will not die with them, but becomes part of the estate. 'I'm actually going to extend that by a further two years to the 31st of December 2031.' David Foley, chief executive of IBCA, added: 'The community is at the heart of everything we do. We can only grow the service, and implement these new recommendations by listening to and acting on the views of the community. 'Some of the recommendations will take longer to implement, which we know may cause frustration and upset for some in the community. 'We will always act with transparency. That is why I can confirm that we will create a registration process, so that the community can tell us that they intend to make a claim. 'We will also develop the service for all groups, paying the first claims before the end of 2025. And we will improve transparency by sharing more of our processes, documents, data and plans on our website.' Incoming memorial committee chairman Mr Smith said: 'A memorial to the thousands who have died from the contaminated blood scandal is long overdue. 'It is a great privilege to be asked to lead this important work on behalf of the community. 'I look forward to working with the whole community across the UK on building an appropriate memorial to those we have lost and to act as a lasting memorial to the nation of what can happen when patient safety is not prioritised.' Today we've published our latest figures – these are accurate as of 15 July 2025. More than half of those who are living with infection and registered with a support scheme have now started their claim. Since April, we've halved average claim processing time from 60 to 30… — Infected Blood Compensation Authority (@IBCA_UK) July 17, 2025 More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s. More than 3,000 people have died as a result, and survivors are living with lifelong health implications. The Infected Blood Inquiry published its main report on the scandal in May last year, and a compensation scheme was announced a day later. But in the same week a general election was called and officials from the IBCA have described how in the early days of the organisation it consisted of two men, a laptop and a phone. Some £11.8 billion has been allocated to compensate victims, administered by the IBCA. As of July 15, 587 people have had their compensation paid totalling more than £400 million.