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Health agency cites infectious diseases as main killer of children and youths
WASHINGTON -- Infectious diseases are the world's leading killer of children and young adults, and governments need to redouble efforts to fight them, the World Health Organization said.
A new survey by WHO found that infectious diseases cause one in every two deaths among children and young adults world-wide. The most common maladies are AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, measles, diarrhea and acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia. Yet most of these diseases, WHO officials said, could be cured for less than the cost of a few bottles of aspirin.
David Heymann, who heads WHO's effort against communicable diseases, said the issue has become increasingly urgent as more bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. Tuberculosis medicines are no longer effective in as much as 20% of patients in some parts of the world. The two leading antimalaria medicines have become ineffective in much of Asia. In addition, new diseases continue to appear throughout the globe at a rapid rate.
"If these trends continue, and our level of response remains the same, our ability to stop their international spread might soon disappear," Dr. Heymann said. Already, he said, some countries have to use much-more-expensive antibiotics because the first-line treatments no longer work against the diseases.
Geneva-based WHO, which released the report in the U.S. capital, is trying to get policy makers in Washington and elsewhere to view infectious diseases as a problem that goes far beyond public health. The illnesses, the organization said, are slowing economic growth in the developing world.
"The World Health Organization is today issuing a wake-up to the world's governments, decision makers and the private sector to take action against infectious diseases before it is too late ... ," said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, all director-general of the organization.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Friday, 18 June 1999