Public health stake in developing countries

Health for all in the year 2000! When the World Hearth Assembly issued this rallying cry in 1977 it did not mean the "state of complete physical, mental and social well-being" evoked in 1946 but "level of health... permitting a socially and economically productive life". In the year 2000 the objective is as remote as it was twenty years ago - if not still more so. The status of the poorest nations remains catastrophic. Health services are inaccessible to the majority of citizens and where they do exist their quality is often mediocre. Decades of real effort, of errors and derisory outcomes, of generous projects and ambiguous terminated in painful failure.