Agenzia Fides - Agenzia della Congregazione per l'Evangelizzazione dei Popoli

Vatican (Fides Service ) – The situation in the world, especially in poorest zones is precarious. Poverty, malnutrition poor hygiene can make common diseases lethal: malaria, pneumonia, chickenpox dysentery, etc. The Catholic Church runs more than 21.757 health care institutions all over the world which serve all the sick irrespective of religion or race. Here is information on the main causes of death due to disease and on Catholic health institutions.
Infective diseases cause 50% of the deaths in developing countries mainly because people have no access to medicines . HIV, TB and malaria are among the main causes, every year about 300 million people are infected and more than 5 million die. The most lethal infective diseases include children’s infections which strike a total of 318,000 children: whooping cough about 20–40 million cases in the world every year, 90% in developing countries. About 200.000–400.000 of the patients, mostly children, die. Polio, counts about 1,919 of cases reported in 2003. Chickenpox caused 745.000 deaths and there are countries where less than 50% dei bambini under 1 are vaccinated: in Mali 33%; Central African Republic 35%; Congo il 37%; in Niauru 40%; in Nigeria 40%; in Afghanistan 44%; in Vanuatu 44%; D. Congo 45%. Diphtheria killed 6,000 people in the world; tetanus killed 282 thousand.
Meningitis is another lethal infection: 173,000 deaths: 22,000 in Africa; 17,000 in America; 29,000 in the eastern Mediterranean area; 15,000 in Europe; 74,000 in South East Asia; 16,000 in the west Pacific.
Due to lack of food 477.000 people died in the world: 151.000 in Africa; 59.000 in America; 43.000 east Mediterranean; 12.000 in Europe; 189.000 south east Asia; 23.000 west Pacific.
Another serious cause of illness is lack of iron which leads to anaemia. Lack of iron may be due to: rare in developed countries but is present among the elderly and children in poorest areas. Reduced absorption of iron, chronic loss of blood due to ulcers, gastric haemorrhaging, kidney tumours, and gastric carcinoma, carcinoma of the colon, carcinoma of the uterus, cause anaemia. The most lethal is chronic loss of blood.
In the world lack of iron affect people as follows: in the United States 20% of adult women, 50% pregnant women, 3% of males and 30% of children (in these countries mortality is minimum thanks to industrial and technological progress). Anaemia due to lack of iron affected 138.000 persons: 21.000 in Africa; 14.000 in America; 11.000 east Mediterranean ; 6.000 in Europe; 81.000 South East Asia; 4.000 west Pacific.
Hepatitis B is one of the major diseases of mankind and is a serious global public health problem. It is preventable with safe and effective vaccines that have been available since 1982. Of the 2 billion people who have been infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), more than 350 million have chronic (lifelong) infections. These chronically infected persons are at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer, diseases that kill about one million persons each year. Although the vaccine will not cure chronic hepatitis, it is 95% effective in preventing chronic infections from developing, and is the first vaccine against a major human cancer. 81.000 suffer from hepatitis: 11.000 in Africa; 6.000 in America; 9.000 east Mediterranean; 4.000 in Europe; 29.000 in South East Asia; 23.000 West Pacific.

Hepatitis C is a viral infection of the liver which had been referred to as parenterally1 transmitted "non A, non B hepatitis" until identification of the causative agent in 1989. The discovery and characterization of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) led to the understanding of its primary role in post-transfusion hepatitis and its tendency to induce persistent infection. 46.000 people suffer from hepatitis: 6.000 in Africa; 6.000 in America; 4.000 E. Mediterranean; 5.000 in Europe; 12.000 south east Asia; 12.000 west Pacific.

A serious disease in poor countries is leprosy, more than one new case every minute and ten million sufferers. According to the World Health Organisation in 2001 there were 760.695 new cases of leprosy reported.
One of the tropical diseases is Dengue, or break bone fever, which strikes 25 million persons every year.
World Health Organisation 2 million people die of TB every year: 1.75 million men and 569.000 women. Deaths for TB among adults and children were reported as follows: Africa 336.000; America 46.000; East Mediterranean 133.000; in Europe 77.000; south east Asia 701.000; West pacific 351.000.
In recent years malaria killed 1. 124.000 million people: 903.000 in Africa; 1.000 in America; 55.000 east Mediterranean; 95.000 south east Asia; 10.000 west Pacific. It would not be difficult to keep the disease under control but the percentage of children who sleep under mosquito net is still low: 0% in Swaziland; 3% in Burundi and Zimbabwe; 6% in Guatemala, Rwanda, Tagikistan and Zambia; 7% in Uganda; 8% in Malawi; 10% in Angola and Ivory Coast. About 500,000 African children are affected by cerebral malaria every year and 10-20% die.
In developing countries there are 1.2 billion poor people, 780 million suffer from chronic hunger and 34% Sub-Saharan Africa. Malnutrition kills 12 million every year (55%) are children under 5.
According a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation between 1999 and 2001, 842 million people in the world did not get enough to eat, 10 million in industrialised countries, 34 million in transition countries and 798 million in developing countries.