Positive progress in world health

We're constantly bombarded with negative stories of new diseases and dangers that we often forget to acknowledge the positive progress being made.

So here’s a look at some good news in the development of global health.

The Millennium Development Goals

Ten years ago, 189 country leaders met to adopt the UN Millennium Declaration and establish ten Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with targets set for 2015.

Here's the good news – in terms of the health-related MDGs, they’re doing an okay job.

Firstly, children are in better health. The number of children under five who die every year is still shocking. But in 2008, fewer children died than the year before (8.8 million compared to 9.2 million), and the number of child deaths per year has been declining steadily since 1990.

Furthermore, the number of underweight children has also declined (from 25% in 1990 to 16% in 2010).

Secondly, there are fewer cases of HIV. Across the world, new infections have declined since 2001, and more people are receiving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy.

The price of some ARVs was cut by a third between 2003 and 2008, making treatment more affordable and accessible worldwide.

And crucially, in 2008 about 45% of the 1.4 million HIV positive pregnant women received ARV treatment (to prevent HIV being transmitted to their babies).

Thirdly, more women get help during childbirth. So even though still less than half the births in Africa and South East Asia are attended by skilled helpers (like midwives, nurses or doctors), globally, more women are giving birth with a professional by their side.

In fact, Sierra Leone, a war-ravaged and impoverished country in West Africa, has just made healthcare free for all women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, as well as for all children under 5.

That's important, because even though the number of women who die in childbirth has fallen since 1990, more than 350,000 women still die from childbirth every year.

And finally, we're reducing the cases and/or effects of some of the world’s most serious diseases.

Many of the developing countries are on track to meet the MDG target to reduce malaria. And although the number of people with tuberculosis (TB) has increased worldwide, it hasn't increased relative to population growth.

Plus, we're getting better at treating TB so fewer people are dying from it (30 deaths per 100,000 cases in 1991 down to 21 per 100,000 in 2008).

Rich world progress

Medical professionals are making inroads in the developed world as well.

In 2006 the first doses of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine were publicly rolled out.

HPV is the most widespread sexually transmitted disease in America, and is the primary cause of cervical cancer (which itself is the second most common cause of female cancer death worldwide).

The HPV vaccine protects against the strains of HPV that cause cancer, and lasts for between four and six years. As at June of this year, more than 61 million women had been vaccinated with the vaccine.

Progress has been made in heart attack treatment as well. In 2000, the American Heart Association gave itself ten years to reduce coronary heart disease by 25%. It achieved that goal in 2008.

The development of drugs such as the clot-busting tissue plasminogen activator, or the development of skills such as the insertion of stents (tubes) to prop open blood vessels has meant a huge reduction in deaths caused by heart disease.

Research

There's good news on the research front too. In the last ten years, scientists have made some major advances in the areas of cancer treatment and prevention, heart health research, and more controversially, stem cell research.

A few of the newer discoveries published in the past few months include:

• Scientists in New York have developed a vaccine that they say acts to prevent Alzheimer's in mice.

• Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have figured out that the mutation of a certain molecule is linked to Parkinson's disease.

• UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Centre has discovered that cancers use fructose as well as glucose to fuel their growth.

Added to that, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal noted that happier people had better overall health.

So hopefully hearing about all these positive developments might make us a little bit healthier too.

By Natalya King