GENEVA (Reuters) - Global recession may lead many governments to reduce investment in basic healthcare, putting at risk the lives of vulnerable mothers and babies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the world's economic woes could set back huge public health campaigns meant to eliminate diseases, tackle the root causes of poverty and save the lives of mothers and babies.

The crisis will also make more people use public health services instead of private ones, adding to the demands on stretched public services.

"The crisis comes at a fragile time for public health ... Women and young children are among the first to be affected by a deterioration in financial circumstances and food availability," Chan told a meeting at the WHO's Geneva headquarters on the effects on health of the global financial turmoil.

The director-general raised concerns that "already vastly overstretched and underfunded" public health systems will fail to detect and treat conditions such as cancer and heart disease that are increasingly common in developing countries.