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Aug. 27, 2005 BBC News reported that WHO (World Health Organization) has worked with many national leaders of African nations to declare tuberculosis an emergency. Tuberculosis kills over 500,000 people in Africa each year. In the United States of America there are typically less than 300 cases of Tuberculosis. Less than 300 people are not a significant percentage of the population of the United States of America. The population of Africa is approximately 796,598,429 and 500,000 is .063% of the total African population. >Imagine losing more than a tenth of the population every two years to a >disease that is preventable and curable. Some people in Africa are getting the medicine necessary to cure Tuberculosis; however, indicated in the BBC story in the news getting people to take the complete series of medicine is sometimes difficult. This is similar to problems in the United States of America: where people do not take their entire round of antibiotic for colds or infections, some spouses go to the doctor when both are sick and then split the anti-biotic between themselves and their spouse or people continue to use past-date antibiotics that were left over from the last time they were sick. NIPA (National Information Program on Antibiotics) has an excellent page describing the appropriate usage of antibiotics, why it is bad to stop taking them even though you feel better and what antibiotics are effective against. The major problem with Tuberculosis is that it takes six months of taking medicine in order to cure the victim. Most people have a hard enough time taking three pills a day for seven days let alone the discipline to take one or more pills every day for six months. It is not only Tuberculosis that is being fought in Africa it is lack of knowledge, it is disorder and it is our best interests that are losing in Africa. Perhaps the curing of others is not enough to motivate the free peoples of the world to send aid to Africa. Perhaps the medical welfare of fellow Africans is not enough for the military activities to relent and let medical supplies pass. It is well known that bacteria changes in its capability and evolves in order to survive. When people are not exposed to the appropriate medicines or the appropriate levels of medicine it is more likely that the bacteria will adapt to the human environment and be resistant to our current antibacterial capabilities. A resistant form of Tuberculosis could easily be transported to the rest of the world and cause great loss of life, pain and suffering. All of that loss of life, pain, and suffering becomes something of a comic tragedy in view of the fact that Tuberculosis is preventable, curable and could be removed as a threat to humanity except that humanity chooses not to perform that purging of Tuberculosis from existence.
It is in the best interests for everyone on Earth that adequate medical
facilities be available to everyone. Nothing will protect the
well-medicated should an evolved version of Tuberculosis or any major
disease become resistant to current medical capabilities. No one wants
to
repeat history like the flu epidemic of the early 20th century.
Imagine not
being able to go to any family gatherings, shopping malls, sporting
events
or club meetings because the flu might get transported from an infected
person to everyone else at that location? A good sample history of
living
like that can be found here.
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