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U.S. funding for global health research has been on the decline from 2009 to 2014, according to a new report
Research suggests global spending on neglected diseases such as Ebola and HIV should double to $6 billion by 2020
The world was pretty far from having a vaccine for Ebola when the virus ravaged West Africa in 2014 and 2015. But it might have been a little closer if the United States had not cut funding for research on a promising new Ebola vaccine in 2012, according to a report by the Global Health Technologies Coalition.
These types of missed opportunities are the reason the coalition, which is made up of 27 nonprofit groups, issues a report every year with recommendations for how much funding Congress should give to agencies involved in health research, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
The coalition also advises these agencies on working together and with groups in other countries to speed the development of vaccines, drugs and other tools for fighting diseases.
“Congress funds the government on a year-to-year basis, so every year we have to come back to the drawing board,” said Erin Will Morton, director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition and one of the authors of the report.