Don't let new viruses distract from old killers-UN
28 Apr 2005
Source: AlertNet
By Ruth Gidley
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Boy suffering from diarrhoea lies in hospital in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
File photo by JAYANTA SHAW
LONDON (AlertNet) - A new infectious disease comes along every year but in looking out for the next big global virus we risk overlooking less dramatic illnesses that cause millions of quiet deaths, a top U.N. health official said.
"The problem with infectious agents is that whilst we are getting new ones, the old ones don't go away," the World Health Organisation's Anarfi Asamoa-Baah told Reuters AlertNet.
"We need to not just look at the new ones that attract attention but the old ones need to be taken care of," the WHO's assistant director-general in charge of communicable diseases said in an interview with AlertNet, the humanitarian Web site run by the Reuters Foundation.
Keeping an eye on familiar killers did not mean the world should neglect emerging infectious threats. But he cautioned that, small outbreaks of new illnesses could act like terrorist attacks in striking fear across the globe:
"The last 30 years, almost every year we have a new infectious disease that used to affect animals, now affecting human beings," Asamoa-Baah said.
"The infectious diseases of the future are not necessarily going to be those that we know, and that is the worrying part.
"They are going to act like terrorists: a few cases can create a climate of fear. The problem is going to be global, for developing countries and for developed countries as well."
New viruses spread faster and further than ever before because of increased travel and climate change, he said.
Even well-developed health systems were ill-prepared to respond, according to Asamoa-Baah, since sophisticated hospital equipment provided a good environment for some germs to thrive.
He blamed modern methods of meat production for some new diseases, like BSE -- bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- and said that transplanting animal parts to human beings for medical purposes was emerging as a source of infection.
QUIET KILLERS
But while much world attention is on new viruses that kill in horrific ways, dozens of more common infectious diseases have never been eradicated in the developing world.
"SARS did not kill that many people compared to how many people die from malaria and HIV, but it created a lot of panic because nobody knew where it was going to end and what was going to happen," Asamoa-Baah said.
In fact, despite the multiplication of new viruses, fewer people die of such diseases than 30 years ago, he said: "But because we live in a 24-hour news time, 20 cases of flu becomes big news."
Yet it is pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and HIV/AIDS that are the main threats in poorer countries, WHO data show.
RANGE OF THREAT
"If you look at the killers of most people in the world, it's more the non-communicable diseases -- the heart, diabetes, cancers -- but infectious diseases remain the number one killer in Africa," Asamoa-Baah said.
The WHO definition of communicable diseases includes illnesses spread by mosquitoes or contaminated water.
"Infectious diseases come in different shapes and different forms," Asamaoa-Baah said, citing HIV, tuberculosis and malaria as well as childhood dangers like measles and mumps.
Tropical diseases like river blindness and leprosy, wiped out in most of the world, still cause misery in remote corners.
"Even in poor countries you don't find them in the capitals. You find them in neglected communities. They don't kill but they deform people. Some cause blindness and deafness, and they affect children's ability to learn," Asamoa-Baah said.
"If you are lame, the chances of being in poverty are high."
Asamoa-Baah said that diseases affecting women and children had long been neglected. The WHO's annual report, released in mid-April, highlighted mothers and infants.
"The idea is to bring that back into the focus, because really the health of the child is dependant on the health of the mother, to a large extent," Asamoa-Baah said.
Ill health had a knock-on effect on economic development, causing a vicious circle: "They (poor countries) are not producing enough children who are active and intellectually bright to take some of those development challenges forward."
The destructive impact of HIV/AIDS on productive adults in developing countries is clear. But Asamoa-Baah said the world should also pay more attention to childhood illnesses that decimate infants before they reach the age of five:
"The future of most (underdeveloped) countries is in jeopardy because the children are either born unhealthy or die very young."
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