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Inter Press Service; April 4, 2001 HEADLINE: HEALTH: POVERTY THE NUMBER ONE KILLER WORLDWIDE,
WARNS U.N. BYLINE: By Thalif Deen DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS, Apr. 4
Tracing the link between health and poverty, the study says:
"Poverty is an important reason that babies are not vaccinated, clean
water and sanitation are not provided, drugs and other treatments are
unavailable, and mothers die in childbirth." Currently, there are about 1.2 billion people living below
the poverty line of less than one dollar per day, and almost 3 billion on less
than two dollars per day compared with a global population of over 6 billion
people, according to World Bank figures. The U.N. study also says that a disproportionate burden of
disease will continue to be borne by disadvantaged or marginalized women,
especially those living in environmentally degraded or ecologically vulnerable
areas, in zones of conflict or violence, or compelled to migrate for economic
or other reasons. As a result, the feminization of poverty will be another
major threat to social and economic development. Many health problems will continue to be exacerbated by
pollution, noise, crowding, inadequate water and sanitation, improper waste
disposal, chemical contamination, poisonings and physical hazards associated
with the growth of densely populated cities. Titled "Health and Sustainable Development," the
study will go before the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development which meets
April 30. The Commission is holding a three-day organizational session in
preparation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit II)
scheduled to take place in South Africa in late 2002. The report, which focuses specifically on health, points out
that despite undoubted advances in many areas, poor health continues to be a
constraint on development efforts. In some cases, the process of development itself is creating
conditions where -- as a result of economic, political and social upheaval,
environmental degradation, and uneven development or increasing inequities --
human health suffers. Over the past decade, the report admits, there have been
steady gains in global health: average life expectancy has increased, infant
and child mortality rates have declined, and the proportion of underweight and
stunted children have decreased. In developing countries, the percentage of people with life
expectancy at birth below 60 declined from 38 percent to 19 percent during
1990-1999. The proportion of people without access to improved water supply
fell from 21 percent to 18 percent over the past decade. At the same time, many infectious diseases have receded,
owing to improved sanitation, nutrition, drugs and vaccines. The annual incidence of polio, for example, has fallen from
an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 (the start of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative)
to an estimated maximum of 20,000 in 1999. The number of polio-infected countries fell from 125 to 30
over that period; the remaining infected countries are in parts of sub-Saharan
Africa and the Indian sub-continent. But despite these advances, the report says, there are huge
gaps and constraints in the field of human health. More than 200 million people
live in countries with an average life expectancy of less than 45 years. The
average life expectancy at birth in 1999 was 49.2 years in the world's 48
poorest countries, compared to 61.4 for all developing countries, and 75.2 for
industrial nations. In many sub-Saharan African countries, life expectancy fell
during the 1990s owing to the impact of HIV/AIDS. Other major setbacks in
health gains occurred in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where the
political and economic transition has been accompanied by decreases in life
expectancy of five years for males. In some of the poorest countries of the world, one in five
children still fails to reach his or her fifth birthday, mainly owing to
infectious diseases related to the environment. More than 20 million women continue to experience ill health
each year as a result of pregnancy. According to the report, six major diseases currently cause
90 percent of the deaths from communicable diseases: AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, and measles. HIV/AIDS, which has reversed the rising life expectancies of
the 1990s, is the fastest growing health threat to development today and a
potential risk to security. More than 12 million Africans have died of AIDS (over two
million in a single year), and 13.2 million have been orphaned, due to
HIV/AIDS. Several hundred million people continue to be infected
annually with malaria, which results in almost 300 million clinical cases
worldwide each year, and over one million deaths. "Health has become a more central concern in
development, both as a contributor to, and an indicator of, sustainable
development. While health is a value in its own right, it is also key to
productivity," the report concludes. BACK
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