titleOnLeft leftOfForm lineAboveForm srchTab  
leftSideOfForm  
textGlobalEducationtextEdnaOnline
rightSideOfForm
imgGlobalIssues
imgCountryProfiles
imgTeachingTools
imgSupportNetworks
imgCurriculumLinks
  Home  About  Contact  Feedback  Sitemap  
Australia's aid program
Children's rights
Desertification
Education
Environment
Food security
Gender equality
Globalisation
Governance
Health
 +-Teaching activities
 +-Case studies
 +-Links and resources
 +-Glossary
 +-Archives
HIV/AIDS
Human rights
International Polar Year
Microfinance
Natural disasters
Peace building
Poverty reduction
Refugees
Rice
Rural development
Sanitation
Urbanisation
Volunteering
Water
Archives


 Print Page Print View

Global Education  /  Global Issues  /  Health

Health

 

Facts

  • World Health Day is 7 April.
  • In the 1990s, child mortality was reduced by a third or more in 63 countries — in more than 100, it was cut by a fifth.
  • If all the food produced worldwide were distributed equally, every person would be able to consume 2,760 calories a day (hunger is defined as consuming fewer than 1,960 calories a day).
  • Every year more than 10 million children, 30,000 a day, die of preventable illnesses.
  • Malaria deaths, now 1 million a year, could double in the next 20 years.
  • Around the world 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 39 million of them in developing countries, three quarters of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate has almost reached one in ten adults, or more for some countries.
  • Tuberculosis remains (along with AIDS) the leading infectious killer of adults, causing up to 2 million deaths a year.
  • More children have died through diarrhoeal disease during the 1990s than all people lost in conflict since World War 2.

Source: http://www.undp.org/

Back to top

Background

According to the World Health Organisation: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." The health of populations has many links with other sectors, such as education, water and sanitation and gender.

Poverty is an important economic and social problem as it is both a cause and an effect of poor health. The poor suffer more and face more serious consequences from ill health and also as a consequence of their country’s incapacity to provide basic health services.

Great gains in health have been made over the last fifty years as the result of improvements in income and education, with accompanying improvements in nutrition, access to contraceptives, hygiene, housing, water supplies, and sanitation. The underlying threats to good health are well known and affordable solutions are frequently available but because of weak government capacity potentially effective policies and programs often fail.

Some of the key health areas are:

Public health systems

Most developed countries spend 5.5% to 8.0% of their GDP on health while the least developed countries spend 1.0% to 3.0%. These differences in expenditure are reflected in the quality of the delivery and responsiveness of the health systems and general health indicators for the population.

Nutrition

Access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food is an important way to prevent malnutrition. Although often invisible, malnutrition affects close to 800 million people worldwide, especially the poor. It mains, cripples, blinds and kills. Young children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition, those surviving may suffer ongoing disease and disability, affecting their ability to learn and develop to their full potential.

Immunisation

Access to immunisation varies greatly across the world. A child in a developing country is ten times more likely to die of a vaccine-preventable disease than a child from an industrialised one. Immunisation is among the most cost-effective interventions. Since the 1980s, considerable progress in immunisation against measles, polio, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus and tuberculosis, has been made, although worldwide average vaccination coverage of children under five fell from 80% in 1990 to 74% in 1999.

Malaria

Malaria causes at least 300 million cases of acute illness and one million deaths each year, 90% of which are in Africa. It is the leading cause of deaths in young children and is also particularly dangerous for pregnant women, causing severe anaemia, miscarriages, stillbirths, low birth weight and maternal death.

HIV/AIDS

An estimated 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS with 95% of global infections in developing countries. HIV/AIDS threatens to reverse years of development and put at risk the political stability and economic security of these countries. It attacks people in their most productive years, destroys communities, and disrupts food production. Heavy burdens are placed on already weak health services.

Water and sanitation

At any one time about one-half of all people in developing countries are suffering from diseases associated with water. Diseases may be caused by drinking water contaminated by human or animal waste, insects which breed in water or parasites. The energy expended carting water long distances also has a health and time cost on women and children. Improved access to water and a knowledge of hygiene and management practices can lead to improved health.

Back to top

Australia's responses

The aim of the Australian aid health policy is to work with developing countries to improve the health of the poor. Primary health care programs are the focus of Australian health aid.

Primary health involves a wide variety of projects with a focus on: communicable and vector-borne diseases especially HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria; women's and children's health; non-communicable diseases and injuries; and assisting countries to develop their health care programs.

In times of natural disasters and other emergencies, the Australian aid program provides support. The aid program aims to deliver prompt, appropriate and effective humanitarian and emergency assistance. They help to identify the problems and to manage the support efforts. A longer-term goal is to assist countries to prevent and prepare for natural disasters and emergencies.

See also: www.ausaid.gov.au/keyaid/health.cfm

Back to top

The global agenda

The Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals grew out of the agreements and resolutions of world conferences organised by the United Nations in the past decade and have been accepted as a framework for measuring development progress.

The first seven goals are either health and nutrition status indicators or health outcomes.

Strengthening health systems

Many projects aim to strengthen health systems as a means of improving efficiency in the management and use of health resources. In most countries, health sector reforms have included:

  • organisational reforms - restructuring of the ministry of health and decentralisation of planning, budgeting authority, control of financial resources and responsibility for implementation of program activities;
  • health financing reforms - cost sharing, user fees, and public and private health insurance mechanisms;
  • increased partnerships with communities and private health-care providers.

The Expanded Programme on Immunization

This programme targets mainly six communicable diseases of childhood and has reduced the share of these six diseases in the total burden of disease among children under five from about 23% in the mid-1970s, to less than 10% in 2000. To fully immunize a child against the six diseases costs about US$17, making immunisation one of the most affordable interventions available.

UN Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Funds raised will support proven interventions against the three diseases. It will provide over 500,000 people living with HIV/AIDS with anti-retroviral treatment and provide medical and educational support for half a million children orphaned due to AIDS. It will also enable the detection and treatment of two million additional cases of tuberculosis, and deliver 20 million combination drug treatments for drug-resistant malaria.

Roll Back Malaria

Roll Back Malaria (RBM) is a global partnership founded in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank with the goal of halving the world's malaria burden by 2010. The RBM partnership includes national governments, civil society and non-governmental organizations, research institutions, professional associations, UN and development agencies, development banks, the private sector and the media. RBM was founded in response to a growing concern by governments, particularly in Africa, about the continuing and increasing burden of disease and death due to malaria.

http://mosquito.who.int

HIV/AIDS

Live and let live’ is the slogan of the two-year World AIDS Campaign 2002-2003, which will focus on eliminating stigma and discrimination by encouraging people to break the silence and the barriers to effective HIV/AIDS prevention and care.

The World Bank is working with its partners to:

  • Prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS among vulnerable groups and in the general population;
  • Promote countries' health policies and multi-sectoral approaches (eg by working in education, social safety nets, transport and other vital areas);
  • Expand basic care and treatment activities for those affected by HIV/AIDS and their families, as well as for children whose parents have died of AIDS and other vulnerable children.

Children learning about hygiene
Children in Nacaroa, Mozambique, learning about hygiene and its importance in preventing cholera.

In the 1990s, child mortality was reduced by a third or more in 63 countries.

 Case studies
 Teaching activities
 
  Back to top

Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia | Legal Information | Contact | Admin

 

Last Modified : Monday, 27 August 2007