SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - When officials speak of disease in
Africa, most people automatically think of the AIDS epidemic that
continues to ravage most of this vast continent. Nevertheless, each year
more than a million young Africans are succumbing -- not only to AIDS
-- but to other diseases such as malaria, cholera, meningitis and
tuberculosis.
At a time when Western Nations are hailing the defeat of
nearly all childhood diseases, why do so many Africans continue to die?
"A recent upsurge of malaria in areas where disease seems to be
ever-present is probably caused by many factors, including rapidly
spreading resistance to antimalarial drugs, climactic changes, and
population movements," a recent report found.
"In the last decade," the report continued, "the prevalence of
malaria has been escalating at an alarming rate, especially in
Africa. An estimated 300-500 million cases each year cause
1.5 to 2.7 million deaths, more than 90% of the deaths are in
children under 5 years of age in Africa." Malaria ranks third among major infectious diseases in Africa after pneumococcal acute respiratory infections and tuberculosis.
Malaria cases in Africa account for approximately 90% of malaria cases in the world.
"Within the last ten years," explains Fr. John Lynch, "we
have seen malaria epidemics in 14 countries of Sub-Saharan
Africa." Fr. Lynch is the director of development for the
Missionaries of Africa. "Each of these epidemics killed an
incredible number of people," he continues, ". . . and many of these
people lived in areas previously free from disease. Teenagers and young
adults are now dying of severe forms of the disease."
Is it possible to stay healthy when you're so poor?
EAST AFRICA - "To be poor often means to be sick." It's a phrase that has been touted by
politicians, sociologists and doctors for more than a decade. But nowhere is this more evident than in
the vast regions of Africa -- where poverty and ill-health go hand-in-hand.
"They tend to reinforce each other" a report issued by an
international health organization states.
"Health is closely related to
access to safe water, something that more than a billion people lack.
Waterborne diseases claim more than three million lives each year,
mostly as a result of dysentery and cholera. These and other
waterborne diseases take their heaviest toll among children." The
study goes on to report that while infant mortality in the world's
richest nations averages six deaths per thousand children born, in the
Africa's poorest countries, 100 children die for every thousand
children born . . . an increase of nearly 17 times as high or nearly
1,700%.
"Another reason for the partnership
between sickness and poverty," another
report explains, "is the lack of sanitation. More than two billion of the
world's people live in villages or communities with inadequate or no
sanitary facilities. Many of the world's poor lack knowledge of the basic
principles of good hygiene. The poor and uneducated often do not
understand the mechanisms of infectious disease transfer and thus cannot
take steps to protect themselves." Additionally, men, women and
especially children with immune systems that have been weakened by
hunger and food insecurity are more apt to become infected by common
diseases.
"When children are poor," explains Fr. John Lynch, M. Afr.,
"they are often not vaccinated for what many of us in the
Western world consider common diseases. Even though the
vaccine may just cost a few pennies -- they are too poor to be
able to afford the vaccine and too uneducated to know the lifesaving
affect of such medicine -- even if they could afford it."
Among the leading infectious diseases, malaria claims more
than one million men, women and children every year -- and
more than 90% of these deaths are in Africa.
