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health, world

The health of people worldwide is monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO). Outside the industrialized world in particular, poverty and degraded environmental conditions mean that easily preventable diseases are widespread: WHO estimated in 1990 that 1 billion people, or 20% of the world's population, were diseased, in poor health, or malnourished. In North Africa and the Middle East, 25% of the population were ill.

Vaccine-preventable diseases

Every year, 46 million infants are not fully immunized; 2.8 million children die and 3 million are disabled due to vaccine-preventable diseases (polio, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, tuberculosis, and measles).

Diarrhoea

Every year, there are 750 million cases in children, causing 4 million deaths. Oral rehydration therapy can correct dehydration and prevent 65% of deaths due to diarrhoeal disease. The basis of therapy is prepackaged sugar and salt. Treatment to cure the disease costs less than 20 cents, but fewer than one-third of children are treated in this way.

Tuberculosis

1.6 billion people carry the bacteria, and there are 3 million deaths every year. Some 95% of all patients could be cured within six months using a specific antibiotic therapy which costs less than $30 per person.

Prevention and cure

Increasing health spending in industrialized countries by only $2 per head would enable immunization of all children to be performed, polio to be eradicated, and drugs provided to cure all cases of diarrhoeal disease, acute respiratory infection, tuberculosis, malaria, schistosomiasis, and most sexually transmitted diseases.

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