Millions of people could be saved from premature death and years of disability through a combination of financial aid and targeted improvements in health services, above all in developing countries, the United Nations health agency said in a report released Thursday.
– Todays global health situation raises urgent questions about justice, the World Health Organization (WHO) says in its World Health Report 2003 – Shaping the Future, which calls for urgent investment and international support for medical services in developing countries.
– In some parts of the world there is a continued expectation of longer and more comfortable life, while in many others there is despair over the failure to control disease although the means to do so exist, the report adds, noting that HIV/AIDS has cut life expectancy by as much as 20 years for many millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Every day in the poorest African countries, 5.000 adults and 1.000 children die from HIV/AIDS, and even without the impact of the pandemic, millions of children born on the continent face greater risk of dying before their fifth birthday than they did a decade ago, the report states.
Illustrating the vast gap in life expectancy between developed and developing countries, it contrasts the prospects of baby girls born at the same moment in Japan and Sierra Leone. While the baby born in Japan can expect to live for about 85 years, life expectancy for the child in one of Africas poorest countries is just 36 years.
– The Japanese girl will receive some of the worlds best health care whenever she needs it, but the girl in Sierra Leone may never see a doctor, nurse or health worker, the report declares. The gap is also made “starkly clear in the shocking statistics on maternal mortality,” with a 250 times higher risk for women dying in childbirth in poor countries.
– These global health gaps are unacceptable, WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said, calling for stepped-up efforts to overcome gross health inequalities among and within countries.
The report suggests ways in which international support can counter some of the main health care weaknesses, including critical shortages of health workers, inadequate health information, a lack of financial resources and insufficient government leadership.
It calls for rapid increases in training and employment of health care workers and stronger government-community relationships.
Summarizing statistics for 2002 the report notes that in developing countries communicable diseases still represent 7 out of the 10 major causes of child deaths. The leading killers were respiratory infections with 1,9 million deaths, diarrhoeal disease with 1,6 million deaths and malaria, 1,1 million deaths.
Of the 45 million deaths among adults worldwide, almost three-quarters were caused by noncommunicable diseases except in Africa, where HIV/AIDS is the lead killer.
Globally, HIV/AIDS caused 2,3 million deaths, followed by heart disease with 1,3 million, tuberculosis with 1 million, and road traffic injuries and stroke with 800.000 each.
Kilde: FNs Nyhedstjeneste
