Global epidemics need a global response
GIVEN the millions of people, goods and animal life moving across the globe every day, the rapid spread of diseases is unavoidable. Therefore, the outbreak of disease anywhere is a not a local or regional threat, but a threat to everybody.
Pandemics are thought by most people to be a thing of the past because of modern medicine. This illusion arises from some notable victories by scientists in all but eliminating some scourges, eg leprosy, and being able to cure many diseases which were previously deadly, such as tuberculosis. With the necessary resources and application of vaccinations, modern medicine can prevent many diseases, including poliomyelitis.
But the preventative and curative capacity of modern medicine is only as efficacious as the environment in which it has to operate. Modern medicine cannot be effective if there are insufficient human, financial and infrastructural resources. In other words, poverty is what determines the health of a given population, and that is the problem facing the vast majority of mankind.
Poor and developing countries do not have the resources or do not use their resources in a way that gives them the best that modern medicine can provide.
Regardless of the wonders of modern medicine, people cannot be healthy where their poverty is such that they are malnourished, have inadequate sanitation and do not have access to potable water. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than US$2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than US$1 a day.
Over 40 million people have HIV/AIDS, resulting in almost four million deaths per annum and 15 million children being orphaned. Every year there are an estimated 500 million cases of malaria, with one million fatalities. Every year 2.2 million children die because they are not immunised and 1.4 million die from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
The international community needs to develop strategies, initiatives, and mechanisms to address emerging and re-emerging epidemic diseases, thereby reducing their impact on affected populations and limiting their international spread.
In much the same way that the developed countries have come together to eliminate ISIS, they need to form a global coalition against diseases like Ebola.
Such a campaign, we believe, is affordable, given that the world’s military spending is approaching US$900 billion, whereas water and sanitation for all would cost less than US$20 billion.
The international community must regard the health of the world’s peoples as a shared responsibility.