International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans were associated with a 16.6% rise in death rates from tuberculosis (TB) in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern European countries between 1992 and 2002, finds a study in this week's PLoS Medicine.
The study, by David Stuckler and colleagues from the University of Cambridge, UK, and Yale University, USA, also found that IMF loans were linked with a 13.9% increase in the number of new cases of TB per year and a 13.2% increase per year in the total number of people with the disease.
Between 1992 and 2002, most of the countries studied in this analysis received IMF loans for the first time. As Stuckler and colleagues note, "According to the IMF, the objective of these programs is to achieve macroeconomic stability and economic growth...", yet a recent report from the Center for Global Development has suggested that countries receiving IMF loans may constrain spending on health and social services. For example, countries receiving IMF loans might need to reduce social spending in order to meet the targets set as a condition of the loan, and do so by placing caps on public wage bills or by privatizing healthcare services. However, previously it has not been clear whether IMF loans are actually linked to any changes in measurable health outcomes.