In China, the World Bank provided $58 million in financial support to the decade-long Infectious and Endemic Disease Control project to curb the tuberculosisepidemic in 13 of China’s 31 mainland provinces. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of people with TB declined by over 37 percent and 30,000 TB deaths have been prevented each year.
In 1974, the World Bank – with three UN partners – launched the Onchocerciasis Control Program. Spearheaded by then World Bank president Robert McNamara, the program was first large-scale health program ever sponsored by the World Bank. The Bank was extremely successful at mobilizing long-term donor support from more than 20 countries. As a result of the program, transmission was halted in 11 west African countries; 600,000 cases of blindness were prevented; and 22 million children born in the program area are now free from the risk of river blindness. Furthermore, 25 million hectares of arable land - enough to feed an additional 17 million people - are now safe for resettlement.
The World Bank provided financial support for the $120 million family planning program in Bangladesh. Fertility decreased from more than six children per woman in 1975 to about three in 2004 -- a decline that exceeded the pace of change in most other countries at Bangladesh's economic level.
The World Bank, in collaboration with UNICEF, the WHO and other agencies, provided technical and financial assistance of $20 million to China’s Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Project from 1995 to 2000. The program developed the technological infrastructure necessary to produce, package, and distribute iodized salt. Between 1995 and 1999, total goiter rates for Chinese children aged 8 to 10 fell from 20.4 percent to 8.8 percent.
In collaboration with the Carter Center and thirteen donor countries, the World Bank has provided financial support for the guinea worm eradication programs in Africa and Asia. Since the start of the campaign in 1986, disease prevalence has dropped 99 percent and the number of cases has fallen from 3.5 million to less than 35,000.
