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Economics of combating malaria
Today
there are a number of social, economic, and geographical factors that make
populations and regions more susceptible to malaria outbreaks than others. Protective immunity and genetic
predispositions are able to decrease the severity of the disease, but when
malaria enters into regions that are not normally affected, such as the
highlands of Eastern Africa, numbers of
affected people sore. There is also
often a concomitant occurrence of malnutrition with malaria prone regions,
leading to a decreased physical ability to fight the disease. Today poverty afflicts most of the regions in
the world that are impacted by malaria.
Poverty serves to exacerbate malaria’s negative effects. The most afflicted populations do not have
access to the appropriate medical facilities, they do not have the money for
the appropriate treatment medications, and they cannot afford to miss work
because they are ill. Whether poverty is
a symptom or cause of malaria and how it plays into the hopes of malaria
eradication and how malaria is viewed by the global community are vital to malaria eradication efforts.
Malaria is a disease of
poverty in so far as impoverished nations do not have the funds to combat
debilitating diseases. These nations are
often poor because of past social and political turmoil, and the ravaging of
malaria and other diseases. Malaria also
substantially decreases the GNP of countries highly affected by malaria and
thus helps to perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
We have seen how a number of different US
organizations are dealing with
malaria both at home and abroad, but how much of this information is
reaching
the general public and what message is it sending? Is this a war
against
poverty or a war against malaria and how should it be addressed?
Research money and funds need to be made available to the fight against
malaria, however, one large draw back is that there is little economic
incentive because the recipient of the drugs and aid cannot pay for
them because they are impoverished. This makes for a very dismal cycle,
one that we are in charge of breaking.
Additional information on economic impact:
http://www.malaria.org/jdsachseconomic.html accessed on 4/25/06
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10206224/site/newsweek/
accessed on 4/25/06
[1] http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-28.html accessed on 5/1/06
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