The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said that the new global killer diseases are emerging at an unprecedented and appalling rate. In the 21 Century, mankind has faced several major health threats that had taken away many innocent lives.
SARS has become a global concern as it is a new and deadly disease that appeared suddenly in the human history. The air travel and the globalization of the live poultry market reflects that this virus have a good medium to sweep across the globe only within a few months.
In 2003, the SARS virus caused an unprecedented panic to the world. It is an infectious disease that merely shows significant symptoms after a week. Also, its mortality rate is extremely high. Fortunately, its infectious rate was small and the virus was suppressed within a few months.
The transference of animal viruses to humans had become a shock and huge threat to human health. Innocent humans were surrendered under the threats of these deadly diseases. WHO has warned people to get prepared for its arrival. In the United Kingdom, the seasonal influenza can be fatal, but generally elderly and people with weak immune system may have at higher risk. However, a new type of flu may be more deadly, as human has no immunity ability against the attack of the disease.
In the recent years, scientists have focused on the birds that carry H5N1 virus. This virus could spread in a tremendous speed and kill people as well. However, the spread of this virus merely occurred in those who were infected or have a close contact with the infected poultry. Although this virus will not spread from person to person, but scientists fear that the death toll caused by this virus may be several hundred thousand due to its mutation, making the virus stronger enough to attack human.
In the 1990s, these terrible diseases had left a horrific nightmare in the human's life. As traveling has become a modern trend of entertainment, these diseases can be spread like a rage fire. Ebola and Marburg viruses are some of these viruses that have the highest mortality rate, killing many innocent lives in the human past history. These diseases can be lethal to human in a matter of just a few days.
Tropical Africa is a home for this disease which causes a hemorrhagic fever. People who infected with this disease may have an extremely high fever, diarrhea and massive bleeding as well. Its infectious rate is terribly high. In Angola, the outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever has claimed the lives of more than 200 people. Nine out of ten people who was diagnosed this disease will have to face the fate of death.
Why WHO is unable to stop the rapid spread of hemorrhagic fever in Angola? This is due to the long-term civil war held in Angola, less knowledge in dealing with diseases, besides the poor health conditions of the people there. Ironically, this rapid spread deadly disease has raised the world's awareness towards its outbreak and symptoms as infected people no longer able to travel as usual.
Many of the world's best-known diseases have brought new threats to the human health. One of them is malaria. Annually, 100 million people from all over the world die from malaria. WHO said that mankind has not taken adequate measures to prevent the rise in the mortality figure due to malaria. This means that, malaria is spreading to new areas, or the disease may resurge in the areas that are considered had this disease completely eradicated.
In the 1960s, the spread of the disease against the mosquito by means of pesticide in sub-Saharan Africa, has rescued the public from the threat of malaria. This, however, resulted in a small portion of investment in malaria control. Nevertheless, this virus becomes more resistance to the human's drug that makes it stronger to attack human after experiencing a series of mutation processes.
WHO said that cholera has remained the scourge to the world over the past 25 years. This organization had put in huge afford to control the outbreak of this disease. Wars, conflicts and natural disasters play a major role in the resurgence of cholera. Poor sanitation and unclean drinking water is also regarded as a fundamental cause for the outbreak of cholera.
After the Rwanda crisis in 1994, as many as 800,000 people who escaped to the border of the city of Democratic Republic of the Congo (Goma) settled themselves with their refugee camps in Goma. Nevertheless, the drinking water of Lake Kivu in the vicinity of the refugee camps was seriously contaminated with Vibrio cholerae. When they arrived in the first month to settle there and survived by consuming water from the Lake Kivu, approximately 50,000 people were died of cholera and dysentery.
WHO explained that many countries are constantly experiencing the rapid rate of urbanization that led thousands of people live in slum, illegal residential area built in the outskirts of major cities, making the outbreak of cholera inevitable and uncontrollable.
Tuberculosis or its abbreviation TB is the main killer of AIDS patients. Each year, approximately 1.5 million people died of TB. Though antibiotic therapy has effectively reduced its outbreak, many people from certain parts of the world are not provided for this medicinal therapy. WHO highlighted their worries toward this disease, as bacteria that induced pulmonary tuberculosis seems to more resistance to antibiotics. It is anxious that these bacteria may become stronger and stronger in the future and human has to invent new antibiotics to fight with this disease.
