PHA-Exchange> UN HEALTH AGENCY CALLS FOR ACTION TO PREVENT MILLIONS OF UNNECESSARY DEATHS

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 UN HEALTH AGENCY CALLS FOR ACTION TO PREVENT MILLIONS OF
UNNECESSARY DEATHS

UN HEALTH AGENCY CALLS FOR ACTION TO PREVENT MILLIONS OF UNNECESSARY
DEATHS
New York, Dec 18 2003 10:00AM
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 today.

"Today's 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 Africa's poorest countries is just
36 years.

"The Japanese girl will receive some of the world's 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-
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.
  2003-12-18 00:00:00.000