Trade-offs in health investments: HIV, Malaria and Malnutrition

While life expectancy has increased worldwide during the last decades, the developing world is still losing millions of lives each year due to three pervasive illnesses: Malaria, HIV and Chronic Malnutrition. This work analyzes the observed trade-offs between health investments on these three conditions and their incidence in Ghana and Nigeria during the period 2005-2015. We use data from the OCDE credit report system database together with data on incidence from the World Health Organization, World Bank, Global Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Results of the cross-data analysis show that: (i) the largest investments go to HIV in both countries, (ii) both malaria and HIV receive investments much larger than those directed to malnutrition, even when the incidence of chronic malnutrition is larger (Ghana), (iii) investments in malaria are larger in Ghana than in Nigeria despite that malaria incidence is higher in Nigeria, and (iv) the Southern states of both countries receive larger health investments in detriment of the poorest Northern areas. We identify and discuss several factors that may explain the mismatch between health funds and incidence for these conditions as well as the apparently low investments in chronic malnutrition in comparison to HIV and Malaria.