By Challenge 3: Worldwide, Antibiotic-Resistant Diseases
The last decade or two have brought quite a few scary diseases to the forefront of the public mind, including SARS, avian and swine flus, West Nile virus, and infectious diseases like ebola and the zika virus.
As the worldwide community continues to grow more interconnected through easy travel via airplanes, highly-infectious diseases remain a huge threat to the entire globe – and especially to nations with poor healthcare infrastructures.
While swine and avian flus can be mitigated by first-world healthcare, developing nations often have no access to advanced medical facilities, leading to higher mortality rates.
Drug-resistant strains of these diseases are also a concern. Overuse of antibiotics has caused “superbugs” that have evolved to be resistant to common antibiotics.
Should a highly-advanced, infectious, and drug-resistant disease spread throughout the globe, the impact could be devastating – and even first-world countries may not be able to handle the treatments required to save lives.
Precautionary measures include close monitoring of outbreaks and research into combating drug-resistant epidemics, and government action to mitigate the spread of outbreaks when they occur.
Challenge 4: The Sanitation Gap
Developing countries often still lack even basic facilities and infrastructure to provide clean water, sewage access, and ensure good hygiene habits. The “Sanitation Gap” represents this issue. Despite how advanced our society is, nearly half the population lack access to toilets and clean water.
The best way to combat this issue is with further investment into the developing world. Governments funding access to clean water and sanitary facilities for low-income countries can produce dramatic benefits.
Providing the people of these nations with what they need to stabilize their environment and continue to grow is a necessity, should we desire to increase the health of the global population.
Understand The Challenges Of The Global Health Environment – And Make A Difference However You Can
Whether you can donate a few dollars to an organization like UNICEF that is helping to provide low-income countries with sanitation facilities or help spread awareness of some of these issues, you should do everything you can to help mitigate, address, and solve these issues.
That’s what World Health Day is all about – spreading the word about the most high-impact issues that face the globe, and helping everyone all around the Earth understand what they can do to help.
Donate if you can. Spread the word if you can’t donate. And help the WHO improve the health of our world – one day at a time.
