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| Humanity has only ever eradicated one human disease: smallpox. Progress has been made with big killers such as malaria and AIDS but there is still a lot of work to do.
Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy In the 1980s Polio paralysed 1,000 children globally every 24 hours. Today it has been reduced by 99% and is found only in three countries. The success of vaccines and health campaigns show that infectious diseases can be defeated. Guinea-Worm disease, a parasitic infection from Round-Worm is set to be the second disease to be eradicated. There are still some big killers. The world needs to do more. One problem is malaria. 100 years ago malaria existed nearly every where in the world and killed two million people a year throughout the first half of the century. It was endemic in the United States and Britain until the early 1950s. Through a global initiative much of the rich world wiped it out by 1990. But it still kills around half a million people a year – mostly young children. Over 90% of these deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa. Mosquitoes are also becoming increasingly resistant to drugs and insecticides. Another big problem is AIDS. At it’s peak it killed 1.9M people annually. Today that figure has halved. HIV diagnosis is no longer a death sentence in the rich world. The life expectancy for someone who is diagnosed early and begins anti retro viral treatment has risen to 71 years. However, there are still nearly 40 million people living with the disease and around half of these are in Eastern and Southern Africa. The danger with both these diseases is complacency. As they become more manageable, fewer resources are spent on trying to eradicate them. That could lead to a resurgence in these diseases in poorer countries and a rise in death rates. If the world really does want to eliminate malaria and AIDS governments need to commit more money instead of limiting it as progress is made. Daily Watch: mind-stretching short films throughout the working week. For more from Economist Films visit: https://econ.st/2MFURxs |
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