The world is making progress in its fight against terrorism and other forms of war but very little progress in its fight against killer diseases ravaging the world. This imbalance is what I will like to call "fundamental international selfishness."
The number of people who have died from preventable-turned killer diseases is far greater than the number of people killed in all the wars of the 20th Century put together. An example is the influenza epidemic of 1919 which killed more people than the two world wars combined. The epidemic was rather on a small scale before the outbreak of the first world war. But it was given little or no attention because nations were busy preparing for the war until the epidemic struck the world mercilessly.
Has the world changed?
There are six killer diseases ravaging our world with no known solutions, largely because the world is not doing enough to fight them. HIV/AIDS kills more than three million people every year; diarrhea kills more than two million annually; malaria is the cause of the death of almost two million people every year and worse still, most of its victims are children; measles accounts for loss of over half a million lives per year; pneumonia kills about two million children under the age of five every year; while tuberculosis causes over 1.5 million deaths every year. These diseases put together have killed an approximately half a billion people since the beginning of the 20th Century. To face the reality, these six undefeated foes still exist because the world wants them to continue to exist.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria established in 2004 has asked the world governments for $13 billion to help curb these three major killers. Total pledges for the fund have so far been way short of the targeted amount, while annually worldwide, military spending is not less than an estimated $700 billion. If 20 per cent of this amount were spent on the fight against these killer diseases, the death rate would be drastically reduced. Even with the best of intentions, health authorities and scientists always find themselves handicapped in their fight against these diseases and world governments may not provide the necessary money.
The Alma-Ata Declaration of September 12, 1978 states, “All countries should cooperate in a spirit of partnership and service to ensure primary health care for all people since the attainment of health by people in any one country directly concerns and benefits every other country.” But what has been the world’s response to this declaration? The world’s follow-up has been highly disappointing. Health care is by no means universal and infectious diseases are still a threat to the health of billions of people on earth. The diseases often strike down children as well as adults in their prime of life while governments keep spending billions of dollars on wars and terrorism.
How then do we keep the balance in check on our spending and efforts at ensuring a better world? Nobody is denying the fact that the fight against terrorism and war prevention efforts are for the development of the world, but neglecting other equally important world developmental problems for military problems is unacceptable. Fighting for world peace through military spending and fighting to bring the spread of killer diseases are equally important. If there is a war, there will be new diseases and nobody will like that to happen. And if diseases continue to ravage the world, its economy will suffer.
Therefore, governments need to realise that as they spend on military purposes, they should spend on humanitarian efforts, particularly the fight against the world killer diseases. Take the case of ARVs for people living with HIV, for example. If the world is serious about providing ARVs for most of the affected people and reducing death rate, why should the governments and the manufacturing companies be selling ARVs to the developing world, the most affected?
All that health authorities, scientists and the world in general need to do
to have headway in the effective fight against the killer diseases and other humanitarian problems confronting the world is for governments to pump at least one-third of what they are currently spending on military activities into the health sector.
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