On the final day of the10th Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF), the health session focused on the influence of local and global health on a nation's economy. “A nation's health is important to its economy, and health is not merely the responsibility of health ministries, but of society as well,” said Dr. Tawfiq Bin Ahmed Khoja, Director General of the Executive Board of the Health Ministers' Council for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. According to Dr. Manfred Dietrich, vice chairman of the scientific advisory board on health, German Ministry of Defense, poor health has an enormous impact on the economy and may cause huge financial losses annually. “There are several fundamental aspects in the relationship between health and the economy, such as the role that poor hygiene in working places plays in the spread of disease,” he said. The globalization of commerce also means the globalization of health risks, he pointed out in his paper “An overlooked factor impacting the world economy”. Economic development is affected by the low standard of public health, and climate change is a severe threat in the next decade that can add to the spread of diseases transmitted by insects, he said. “As a result of global warming, insects, such as mosquitoes may begin to appear in moderate climate zones,” he added. In a different health area, Dino Celeste, CEO of Hexor health economics and research consultancy firm, pointed out the importance of allocating health care recourses on two levels: the macro level which consists of evaluating disease and treatment and the micro level which involves assessing new health care technologies such as advanced medical treatment and diagnostic techniques. Decision and policy-makers need to be certain that they are adequately informed in order to allocate healthcare resources in a rational, fair and sustainable way, he said.
