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Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and pneumonia are prevalent in Africa, with contaminated living conditions and lack of resources contributing to their spread. The Global Fund established in 2002 to fight these diseases is considered inadequate in addressing the problem, with half of the world’s HIV-infected people living in African countries. Chronic diarrhea is responsible for one in five deaths of a child worldwide, while lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia kill 800,000 people a year in Africa.
Widespread diseases in Africa are largely nothing new and have been plaguing humanity around the world since the dawn of civilization. Among the infectious diseases in Africa, one that tops the list is tuberculosis with 1,700,000 people dying from it in 2009 globally and more of these in Africa than anywhere else. Where disease and poverty go hand in hand, lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia and other diseases such as diarrhea and malaria kill large numbers of people due to contaminated air, water and lack of population control of mosquitoes. Rounding out the top five most prevalent African diseases is HIV/AIDS, which may be the most preventable of the bunch.
The World Health Organization estimated in 1999 that 90% of all infectious disease deaths worldwide were the result of just six types of infection, and resulted in 50% of all premature human deaths in children and young adults . These diseases included: pneumonia, tuberculosis, chronic diarrhea, malaria, measles and AIDS. The top three of these that have received large global funding to reduce disease in Africa are AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. A $3,000,000,000 US Dollar (USD) Global Global Fund has been established to fight these three diseases since 2002 on the African continent.
Despite such international efforts, the Fund is considered to lack resources for disease control in Africa. That’s because half of the world’s HIV-infected people live in African countries, and figures like the fact that one person dies of malaria in Tanzania every five minutes are difficult for any organization, regardless of its size and scope, to manage. Even though $400,000,000 USD of the Fund has been earmarked for the treatment of Tanzanians living with AIDS, it is seen as grossly inadequate at addressing or containing the problem.
Worldwide, 1,800,000 people die of AIDS every year. Estimates for sub-Saharan Africa are that 5% of the population is infected with HIV, or 22,500,000 people, with 1,300,000 dying each year. As for malaria, as of 2008, 247,000,000 people were infected with the disease, and the vast majority of these at 212,000,000 were residents of African nations. Deaths from malaria as of 2008 were estimated at 881,000 globally, with 801,000, or 91%, coming from Africa.
Where contaminated living conditions such as polluted water lead to chronic diarrhea, it is responsible for one in five deaths of a child worldwide. As of 2011, 2,200,000 children die each year from diarrhea and related diseases, with 80% of these deaths in children under the age of two. As African diseases progress, it is responsible for about 8% of all deaths on the continent each year.
Lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia, bronchitis and bronchiolitis were estimated to kill approximately 4,200,000 people globally each year as of 2009. Pneumonia is the cause of 90% of all lower respiratory infections worldwide and It also affects developed nations, with around 1% of the population in the UK contracting it each year and 40,000 to 70,000 Americans dying from it. In terms of diseases in Africa that kill children, however, pneumonia kills 800,000 people a year.
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