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Diseases of poverty and the 10/90 gap 137Figure 5Percentage of WHO regions lacking access toessential medicines 29All countries30ChinaWest Pacific1514India65South-East Asian26European14East Mediterranean29American22African470 10 20 30 40 50 60 70Within these populations, it is the poorest socio-economicgroups that disproportionately suffer from a lack of access toexisting medicines. 9 The implications of this failure of public healthpolicy on global mortality are profound – according to one study,over 10 million children die unnecessarily each year, almost all inlow-income or poor areas of middle income countries, mostly froma short list of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, measles,malaria and causes related to malnutrition (Black, 2003).Only one-half (approximately) of sub-Saharan African childrenare vaccinated against childhood diseases, and in isolated areas thatnumber is as low as one child in 20 (WHO, 2002a). A variety offactors conspire to create this desperate situation, many of themcaused by government mismanagement and interference. These