The World Health Organisation has launched an initiative with commercial information providers to supply research centres in Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe with low-cost Internet access to scientific information. Discussions are also underway to encourage Elsevier Science, the multinational publisher, to join the initiative that is currently being led by the Open Society Institute (part of the Soros Foundation network), and information providers, ISI and Silver Platter.
The project is part of the United Nations "Health InterNetwork" programme, which aims to improve global public health by facilitating the flow of health information using Internet technologies. Only a small fraction of global research expenditure goes to research into diseases and health issues that affect the poor, such as malaria, fatal childhood diseases, and nutrition. According to WHO, one step towards changing this is to facilitate research in the countries that have first hand experience with these health issues.
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