KATHMANDU, DEC 24 - Health care services of most developing countries require urgent investment and international support, states the World Health Report 2003 that was launched today.
"The urgency of the challenge faced today is illustrated by the contrasting prospects of baby girls born at the same moment in Japan and Sierra Leone," states the report.
According to the report, a baby girl born in Japan today can expect to live for about 85 years while a girl born at the same moment in Sierra Leone has a life expectancy of 36 years only. The overall life expectancy has, however, increased by 20 years over the last 50 years. It has reached a global average of 65.2 years, compared with 46.5 years in 1950-1955.
The report further reveals that developing countries account for 98 per cent of child mortality rate. Another revelation is that communicable diseases account for the majority of deaths in developing countries. The cause of majority of deaths in case of adults is however, non-communicable diseases.
HIV/AIDS is the leading infectious cause of adult deaths in the world with the highest impact in the Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the percentage of people receiving anti-retroviral therapy in Africa is only one per cent. The WHO has come up with the ‘3 by 5’ target, which aims to provide 3 million people of the developing country with anti-retroviral therapy by 2005. The other leading causes of death are heart diseases, tuberculosis, and road traffic injuries, among others.
The report points out the need to strengthen commitments from both the wealthy and the developing countries in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which has placed high priority to health.
As a success story, the WHO has put forward the example of Global Polio Eradication Initiative. "As a result of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the number of children paralysed by this devastating disease every year has fallen over 350,000 in 1988 to about 1900 in 2003," reads the report. The number of countries has fallen from 125 to seven.
Dr. Kalus Wagner, WHO representative, said equity in access to quality health care was still some distance away. "In most of the developed world, highly sophisticated systems are in place that ensure that people can live longer lives in better quality. And still, there are also millions of people without insurance cover."Posted on: 2003-12-25 04:56

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.

* Full Name

* Address

* Email Address

* Comment
[Some of the HTML tags you can use : <b>, <i>, <a>]

* Captcha

Get another CAPTCHA code