Most countries in the Asian Development Bank region (Asia & Pacific) spend less than $47 per capita per year on health and they need to increase the funds for reducing poverty and accelerating economic development, a top official of World Health Organisation said in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Addressing the Civil Society Forum on 'Health investment for economic growth: building blocks for pro-poor development" on the inaugural day of the four-day 39th annual meeting of board of governors of ADB in Hyderabad, David Evans, director, department of health system financing, WHO, observed that there was under-investment on health in the region.

"As many as 30 member countries of ADB spend less than $40 per capita per year," pointed out. ADB, the multilateral development financial institution, has 65 members, including 18 from outside the region.

Evans said it was important to keep people healthy by investing more in the sector to improve their productivity. "The investment on health prevents financial catastrophe and impoverishment," he said.

He said the disease pattern had changed and non-communicable diseases were emerging as killers. He said alcohol, blood pressure, tobacco, overweight and cholesterol were among the top 10 risk factors, accounting for a large portion of the disease burden.

Indrani Gupta, head, Institute of Economic Growth, said further reduction in poverty in India would not be possible without significant improvement in health status. She said that the overall health budget of the Union government and the states combined together was less than one percent. She called for improving efficiency in health expenditure and regretted that subsidies were not reaching the poor.

John Hetherington of Population Services International, who chaired the session, said investment on health was not only a good idea but it also lead to immense economic benefits.

Gopi Gopalakrishna of DTK International, a NGO, said economic costs of not addressing development needs were huge. "It costs Rs.150 ($3.3) to prevent a pregnancy but it costs Rs.4,500 ($100) per year to educate a child," he said and added that "25 million people in India do not want to have child but have no access to family planning methods."

He also noted that despite high visibility, the NGO sector's contribution to service delivery is negligible. "Over 1.2 million NGOs in India contribute less than 0.7 per cent of total healthcare," he said.

Nemat Hajeebhoy of Aga Khan Development Network, Tanzania, said addressing the issues of safe drinking water and sanitation could solve many problems. She said that one in every five Indians had no toilet facility. Only 1 to 2 percent of the government spending was on water supply and sanitation.

She said half of the world's six billion people had no access to sanitation and half of the developing world was sick at any given time. About 6,000 children die every day due to diarrhoea.