African countries are developing innovative methods to tackle illness and disease, but health problems across the continent remain enormous, the World Health Organization said in a report Monday.
The U.N. health agency's report assessed the enormity of problems ranging from the ongoing AIDS crisis to the increasing incidence of diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
It also highlighted innovative strategies being developed across Africa that rely not on expensive methods imported from richer countries, but on local initiatives using readily available resources -- such as the training of community health care workers.
In Uganda, the shortage of doctors meant AIDS patients were going without treatment. To fill the gap, the country turned to its nurses, training nurses to do jobs traditionally done by doctors.
Africa's health report card is catastrophic: More than 90 percent of the world's malaria cases occur on the continent, and less than 60 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa has access to safe water.
AIDS has cut a wide swath through Africa, and complicates virtually every pre-existing health issue on the continent. New problems like the recently identified extensively drug resistant tuberculosis in South Africa are also threatening already fragile health systems.
[The New York Times]
No comments:
Post a Comment