Red Cross warns of threat from preventable diseases

June 28, 2000
Web posted at: 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 GMT)

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From staff and wire reports

LONDON -- While natural disasters can bring massive suffering and death, the Red Cross says preventable diseases killed far more people in 1999.

And a report issued by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies blames the nations of the world for not making public health a priority.

VIDEO CNN's Margaret Lowrie reports on the call from the International Red Cross for the nations of the world to do more to fight communicable diseases. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     MESSAGE BOARD Health talk   • AIDS in Africa: Dying by the numbers • AIDS leaves Africa's economic future in doubt • Image gallery: pictures from the front line • AIDS statistics

Last year, 13 million people -- mostly children -- died from preventable diseases: AIDS, malaria, respiratory diseases and diarrhea. That is 160 times more deaths than those caused by natural disasters, including massive earthquakes in Turkey, floods in Venezuela and cyclones in India, the report said.

"We need only to look at the death toll from infectious disease to see the results of this dangerous trend. We need to make treating infectious disease a priority," Didier Cherpitel, the federation's secretary-general, said at a press conference announcing the findings.

That was echoed by Peter Walker, director of disaster policy for the federation.

"It's the communicable diseases -- the stuff you can vaccinate against," he said, citing the "rise in diphtheria, spread of malaria -- which you can do a lot about with basic prevention with bed nets, and with cleaning up the environment.

"We need to make public health a priority," Walker said.

"What we're seeing, when we go in to do disaster relief, is that more and more frequently, the disaster is the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is that the basic health of that community has been going steadily down over the last decade," he said.

The escalation of AIDS infections in Africa was singled out as one of the key areas of concern.

"Once a disease like AIDS reaches the kind of proportions we see in sub-Saharan Africa it is no longer a disease, it is a disaster," said Walker. "Such a widespread disease destroys the work force and shatters the economy."

More than 23 million people in the region are estimated to have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS -- 70 percent of the global total, the report said. Across the world, 300 people now die hourly from AIDS, it said.

The report says government budget cuts are partly to blame for the high numbers.

"When a government has to cut back on spending, where does it cut back? Inevitably on health care and education," Walker said.

Public expenditure on health in poor countries averages just 1 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 6 percent in rich countries, the report said. As a result, diseases that once were under control are reappearing, it said.

While the Red Cross does not track the rise of preventable diseases on a year-to-year basis, figures for diseases such as malaria showed worrying trends, the federation said.

Malaria -- which kills 2.6 million people a year, 70 percent of them children -- is appearing in countries such as Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. And Russian cases of syphilis have increased 40-fold since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the report said.

The report said changing people's behavior saves more lives than spending money on expensive institutions and equipment.

The report says, "Impressive real results come from widespread community health programs to vaccinate children against preventable disease and encouraging people to protect themselves from malaria by using treated bed nets or from AIDS by using condoms."

Correspondent Margaret Lowrie and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
 • World Disasters Report
Aids: Africa in Peril
United Nations
UNAIDS: The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS

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