January 22, 2019.
To start the year off right, it is customary to make wishes. Those of the World Health Organization (WHO) are a bit special since they point to the ten global health threats to be tackled as a priority in 2019.
What priorities for WHO in 2019?
The World Health Organization (WHO) sets the record straight and exposes the most important threats to human health in 2019. No question for the body to compare diseases with each other, depending on which one would cause the most deaths: it is simply a question of point out the biggest health risks that threaten global health in the months or even years to come.
First of all, we can mention respiratory and pulmonary diseases, cancer and premature death directly linked to air pollution by fine particles generated by human activity. Another threat, which mainly concerns industrialized countries: the often chronic non-communicable diseases caused by obesity, tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyle. We are talking here about diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases which kill 15 million people between the ages of 30 and 69 each year.
Vaccination coverage, Ebola, Dengue, influenza, HIV
The WHO report also sets out its fears for various communicable diseases that could be the cause of epidemics in 2019: ebola (11,000 deaths between 2014 and 2016), dengue, seasonal influenza, the virus of which mutates each year and HIV, that kills a million people every year.
The latest threats exposed by the WHO concern fear of vaccines, including in Western countries which could lead to a return of certain diseases (measles), the resistance of microbes to antibiotics, the medical deserts which endanger the populations furthest from the cities, the displacement of populations, as in Yemen, which suffers “ the world’s worst humanitarian crisis “.
Maylis Choné
