WHO Ties Rising Population, New Diseases
GENEVA, 24 August: A ballooning world population, intensive farming practices and changes in sexual behavior have provided a breeding ground for an unprecedented number of emerging diseases, the UN health agency said Thursday.
AIDS and 38 other new pathogens (sygdomsfremkaldende lidelser) are afflicting mankind that were unknown a generation ago, the World Health Organization said.
Though advances in science could account for the discovery of existing pathogens that were previously unidentified, WHO epidemics expert Dr. Mike Ryan said changes in human behavior and practices have produced more new diseases.
– We have seen a shift in trend that reflects a transition of human civilization, Ryan said.
– The relationship to the animal kingdom, our travel, our social, sexual and other behaviors have changed the nature of our relationship with the microbial world and the result of that is the emergence of new pathogens and the spread of those pathogens around the world, noted he.
He added that in the late 19th century, scientists discovered a range of agents causing ancient scourges (svøber) such as anthrax, staphylococcus, tuberculosis and tetanus (stivkrampe).
In the 1970s and 80s it was not pathogens experts were discovering but new syndromes: children getting sick with rashes and fever in the suburban areas of the Americas, people suffering from liver and renal (nyre) disease after consuming undercooked meat.
– We have urbanized a world. We have moved people and food around that world at ever increasing speed. We are not saying that is a bad thing. What we are saying is that we must recognize the risk we create in the process and invest to manage those risks, Ryan stated.
WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said one of the changes affecting human health was increasingly intensive poultry farming, which may account for the global spread of bird flu.
– It should not come as a surprise that we are seeing more and more disease outbreaks coming from the animal sector, Chan said noting that the majority of the 39 new diseases came from animals, including Ebola, SARS, and bird flu.
Much of WHOs annual report on the state of the worlds health was designed to convince governments to adhere to (overholde) new, tighter International Health Regulations, providing the basis for the world to cooperate in combating frightening diseases.
Kilde: The Push Journal
