The world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill-health and suffering across the globe is listed almost at the end of the International Classification of Diseases. It is given the code Z59.5-extreme poverty.
Poverty is the main reason why babies are not vaccinated, why clean water and sanitation are not provided, why curative drugs and other treatments are unavailable and why mothers die in childbirth. It is the underlying cause of reduced life expectancy, handicap, disability and starvation. Poverty is a major contributor to mental illness, stress, suicide, family disintegration and substance abuse. Every year in the developing world 12.2 million children under 5 years die, most of them from causes which could be prevented for just a few US cents per child. They die largely because of world indifference, but most of all they die because they are poor.
In the time it takes to read this sentence, somewhere in the world a baby has died in its mother's arms. For that mother, the message that her neighbor's infant will live is no consolation. It does not stem her grief to know that 8 out of 10 children in the world have been vaccinated against the five major killer diseases of childhood, or that globally since 1980 infant mortality has fallen by 25 percent, while overall life expectancy has increased by more than 4 years, to about 65 years.
Beneath the heartening facts about decreased mortality and increasing life expectancy and many other undoubted health advances lie unacceptable disparities in health. The gaps between rich and poor, between one population group and another, between ages and between the sexes, are widening. For most people in the world today every step of life, from infancy to old age, is taken under the twin shadows of poverty and inequity and under the double burden of suffering and disease.
For many, the prospect of longer life may seem more like a punishment than a gift. Yet by the end of the century we could be living in a world without poliomyelitis, a world without new cases of leprosy, a world without deaths from neonatal tetanus and measles. But today the money that some developing countries have to spend per person on health care over an entire year is just US $4-less than the amount of small change carried in the pockets and purses of many people in developed countries.
A person in one of the least developed countries in the world has a life expectancy of 43 years according to 1993 calculations. A person in one of the most developed countries has a life expectancy of 78-a difference of more than a third of a century. This means a rich, healthy man can live twice as long as a poor, sick man.
That inequity alone should stir the conscience of the world-but in some of the poorest countries, the life expectancy picture is getting worse. In five countries, life expectancy at birth is expected to decrease by the year 2000, whereas everywhere else it is increasing. In the richest countries, life expectancy in the year 2000 will reach 79 years. In some of the poorest, it will go backwards to 42 years. Thus the gap continues to widen between rich and poor and by the year 2000, at least 45 countries are expected to have a life expectancy at birth of under 60 years.
In the space of a day, passengers flying from Japan to Uganda leave the country with the world's highest life expectancy-almost 79 years-and land in one with the world's lowest-barely 42 years. A day away by plane, but half a lifetime's difference on the ground. A flight between France and Cote d'Ivoire takes only a few hours, but it spans almost 26 years of life expectancy. A short air trip between Florida in the USA and Haiti represents a life expectancy gap of over 19 years.
The purpose of the report is to highlight such inequities and to tackle the wider question: what are the global health priorities? It also tries to answer other crucially important questions. Which are the major diseases, the major causes of death, handicap, disability and diminution of the quality of life? Which conditions cause most misery, although they may not be fatal? Which countries, or communities within countries, have the greatest health needs? Where should health resources be targeted?
The report, for the first time, has attempted to examine the burden of ill-health not just by disease, but also by age, as the impact of illness differs across the age spectrum. Where possible, the analysis of health status has been carried out for infants and children, adolescents, adults and the elderly. On the basis of the data available and considered to be reasonably reliable, ten leading causes of death, illness and disability have been identified. There is also an explanation of what the World Health Organization (WHO) is doing to bridge the gaps in health, an attempt to assess health trends in the coming years, and an effort to chart a health future for mankind-a future in which a baby lives, not dies, in its mother's arms.
