Diseases of Poverty

Poverty and disease are inextricably linked.

Six diseases account for two out of three deaths among children and young adults in Africa. The World Health Organization calls them "Diseases of Poverty" because they primarily affect the poor and exacerbate a situation that is already bleak. These six diseases (malaria, measles, tuberculosis, pneumonia, HIV/AIDS and diarrhea disease) combined with complications of childbirth, kill 14 million Africans each year.

Malaria: Over one million die of malaria each year, including 2,000 children every day in sub-Sahara Africa. Malaria is estimated to have slowed economic growth in Africa by 1.3 percent per year.

Measles: In Africa 38 million children under the age of five are at risk from measles. Measles is the leading vaccine-preventable killer in the world.Children account for over 50% of measles death.

Tuberculosis: Tuberculosis kills 1.7 million people a year. The number of new tuberculosis cases has been growing by about one percent a year.

Pneumonia: According to WHO pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis are responsible for about 1.6 million deaths each year.And more than 90% of pneumococcal pneumonia deaths in children occur in developing countries. Dr. Lee Jong-wook, the Director-General of the World Health Organization said "The international community's task now is to continue to work together productively to make the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine widely available to children in Africa, as lives are lost every minute to pneumococcal disease. Immunizing children with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in developing countries will be a critical intervention towards achieving a two-thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate."

HIV/AIDS: Over 40 million Africans live with HIV. More than three million, including 500,000 children, died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2003 and, tragically, despite much international attention, African nations are experiencing only minimal improvement. In 2003 alone, over four million sub-Sahara African children lost a parent to AIDS.

Diarrhea Diseases: Each year 1.8 million children under the age of five die of diarrhea disease. Of these deaths, only 700 are in the developed world. Over 90% of these deaths in the developing world occur in children under five years of age.

The economic losses suffered by victims and their families of these six diseases that are directly associated with poverty, add up to a massive drain on the resources of communities and nations. In fact, estimates are that the developing world loses $20 billion a year to tuberculosis alone.

Importantly, all six diseases can be prevented or treated at very low cost. For instance, antibiotics that treat acute malaria cost less than 10 cents, and a measles vaccine costs just 26 cents. But despite affordable treatment options, these diseases continue to take a heavy toll. Government and nonprofit programs have been unable to achieve the scale and sustainability necessary to provide affordable healthcare to the marginalized in the developing world, particularly in hard-to-reach rural areas.

MicroClinic believes private sector strategies that provide economic and lifestyle incentives are the most effective way to effectively expand coverage to low income communities.