Article
13 December 2005
Every year, some 100 million people worldwide are forced into poverty by health care costs. Last week, more than 200 participants from 40 countries attending the "International Conference on Social Health Insurance in Developing Countries" in Berlin discussed how people can best be protected against financial shocks deriving from illness. It was the first international meeting organized by the ILO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the German development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), following a 2004 agreement on common activities in the field of social protection. German journalist Anne Sieger reports from Berlin.