Question

suggestions: current issue in global health (ideally not in the US)

Answer 1

The planet faces a multitude of threats to wellbeing. They range from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria, growing evidence of drug-resistant viruses, rising levels of obesity and physical inactivity to environmental and climate change health effects and numerous humanitarian crises.

Every day nine out of ten individuals breathe toxic air. In 2019 air pollution is known to be the greatest health danger to the world. Microscopic air pollutants that penetrate the respiratory and circulatory systems, damage the lungs , heart and brain, prematurely killing 7 million people each year from diseases such as cancer, stroke, heart and lung disease. Approximately 90 per cent of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries with high amounts of pollution from manufacturing , transportation and agriculture, as well as dirty cookstoves and domestic fuels.

Non-communicable disorders such as diabetes , cancer and heart disease are collectively responsible for more than 70% or 41 million deaths worldwide. This includes 15 million people, aged between 30 and 69, dying prematurely. More than 85 percent of these premature deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Five major risk factors have driven the rise of these diseases: tobacco use, physical inactivity, harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diets and air pollution. Such risk factors often worsen mental health concerns that could occur at an early age: half of all mental disorders begin at the age of 14, but most cases go undetected and untreated-suicide is the third leading cause of death

The world is going to face another influenza pandemic-the only thing we don't know is when it happens and how serious it is going to be. Global defences are only as effective as the weakest link in the preparedness and response system for health emergencies in any country. Fragile environments occur in nearly all areas of the world, where half of the core targets of sustainable development goals, including child and maternal health, remain unfulfilled.

Antibiotics, antivirals, and antimalarials are some of the greatest contributions in modern medicine. Now, the time is running out for those medications. Antimicrobial resistance the ability of bacteria , parasites , viruses, and fungi to withstand these antibiotics threatens to take us back to a period when diseases like pneumonia , tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis were not easily controlled. The impossibility of preventing infections could seriously compromise surgery and procedures such as chemotherapy.