Posted on 12/18/2003 6:07:03 AM PST by Jimmyclyde
AIDS Is Cutting African Life Span to 30-Year Low, Report Says By REUTERS
GENEVA, Thursday, Dec. 18 — In AIDS-ravaged parts of southern Africa adult mortality is higher than it was 30 years ago, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
In 14 African countries, the United Nations agency said in its annual World Health Report, child mortality is higher than it was in 1990, with more than 300 children out of every 1,000 born in Sierra Leone dying before the age of 5.
The 194-page report, which includes information on life expectancy, road traffic deaths and the fight against polio and AIDS, also warned of a growing gulf in health care and exposure to disease between the poorest countries and other countries.
The report concluded that life expectancy is on the increase in most of the world, but it also highlighted problem areas.
"Today's global health situation raises urgent questions about justice," Dr. Jong Wook Lee, the director general of the health agency, wrote in an introduction.
"In some parts of the world there is a continued expectation of longer and more comfortable life, while in many others there is despair over the failure to control disease though the means to do so exist."
Of the 57 million premature deaths in 2002, 10.5 million were children younger than 5, and 98 percent of those were in developing countries.
In Zimbabwe, the average life expectancy for men and women was 37.9; in Zambia it was 39.7; and in Angola it was 39.9. In Switzerland it was 80.6, and it was 80.4 in Sweden and 79.7 in France.
A baby girl born now in Japan could expect to live 85 years, while one born in Sierra Leone would probably not survive beyond 36.
"A world marked by such inequities is in very serious trouble," Dr. Lee wrote. "We have to find ways to unite our strengths as a global community to shape a healthier future."
The report said AIDS was the leading cause of death for people between 15 and 59, reducing the life expectancy of adults in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe by 20 years.
Deaths from the virus and the complications it brings were almost twice those from the next top killer — heart disease — and well over twice as high as the toll from the third most fatal disease — tuberculosis — according to the report.
The health agency said diseases related to tobacco were responsible for about five million deaths a year.
It said that in 2002, over 1.2 million people died of lung cancer — largely caused by smoking — which was a 30 percent increase over 1990. Three out of four of those who died were men, the agency said.
Among men, average life expectancy is 77.9 years in Australia and 75.9 in France. In China, the average man lives to 69.6, in Brazil to 65.7 and in Egypt to 65.3.
But in Russia, a man can expect to live to only 58.4.
Maybe their to busy telling everybody how great the lifestyle is...
Good point, but do not miss those two threads:
AIDS statistics exaggerated - Africa isn't dying
AIDS In Africa (Long read)
Medical break through have enabled those who suffer with AIDS and HIV to live longer and continue to infect more.............
while one born in Sierra Leone would probably not survive beyond 36.
That is not what that statistic means. Example, 5 people, 4 of whom live to 50 and one dies at age zero. Average life expectancy is 40, even though 80% lived past that. Child deaths heavily distort the average life expectancy because they are so far from the mean age of death. Undoubtably, most children born in sierra leone will live past 36...but that is not alarmist enough for the agenda they are pushing in their 'news'
In a never ending effort to make life fair, might I suggest that we have a form of affirmative action here. It is probably not possible to extend the life span of those in Zambia or Angola, so I think the French should kill enough young French citizens to bring these statistics into conformity.
Accoring to CIA World Factbook -- Zambia, Zambia's population is growing at the annual rate of 1.52%. To paraphrase Mark Twain, news of Africa's death has been greatly exaggerated.
Like I said elsewhere, we are dealing with an alliance of politicians who are trying to appear useful and scientists who use scary headlines to get grant money.
A sad state of affairs.
The medicines that are used do not kill the virus only slow it down and as you say allow the infected to infect more and more.
In an effect to stop the disease they have in fact spread it.
This fact and the combination of the powerful homosexual agenda promoting their lifestyle as "gay" and fun has caused some serious problems in this country and in the world.
There is no medicine on earth that can cure perversion.
No, it does raise questions about justice. It does raise questions about why the cradle of mankind is a hundred years or more behind the West in civilizing themselves.
This guy has no sense of history. Plagues have wiped out a third of the population in Europe in recorded history. Influenza killed over 30 million worldwide in less than two years in the early part of the twentieth century.
But AIDS did not have that effect here. Why? Because we have modern medicine, modern sanitation, and a system of media and education that informed people of the dangers.
Sub-Saharan Africa has none of those things, and until that part of the world enters the modern era, plagues are going to be a fact of life for them.
You son must have superhuman powers to see "every segment of the population" and gather the numbers through his own eyes. He could put hundreds of researchers out of business.
That's not really what average life expectancy means.
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