Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
longest-lived people in the world. But Australian of the Year for 2003, Fiona
Stanley, has drawn national attention to the fact that many indicators of
developmental health and well-being are showing adverse trends among
children and adolescents in Australia. Rising rates are being observed for low
birth weight, neuro-developmental disorders, asthma, type 1 diabetes,
inflammatory bowel disease, autism, mental health morbidities, child abuse
and neglect, adolescent suicide, obesity, eating disorders, learning disabili-
ties, behavioural disorders, aggressive behaviours and violence, school drop-
out and truancy, juvenile crime, illicit drug and alcohol use, and teenage
births (Stanley 2002).
Heart disease, cancer and strokes, which had replaced infectious diseases
as the main cause of death, have declined. There are huge differences in
health within the population, however, and Indigenous Australians have a
life expectancy 20 years less than the national average.
Despite gains in life expectancy amongst non-Indigenous Australians
there is no cause for complacency in regard to either infectious or non-infec-
tious diseases.
The widespread and inappropriate use of broad-spectrum antibiotics
such as vancomycin-type drugs as 'growth promoters' in animals reared for
food and their profligate non-specific prescription for humans has led to the
emergence of multi-resistant strains of the bacteria
Staphylococcus aureus
and
If these bacteria become more prevalent it will
be dangerous to be admitted to hospital and we may return to the pre-anti-
biotic days in which staphylococcal infections carried a mortality rate of 30
per cent or more (Collignon 2002). We may also be witnessing changes in
the epidemiology of respiratory viruses. One consequence of the growth in
numbers and density of the human population may be epidemics of new
mutants of highly transmissible viruses. Recent years have witnessed the
emergence of 'new' viral diseases such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syn-
drome) and the bird influenza virus in Asia. The latter carries the small but
potentially dangerous chance of gene re-assortment with human influenza
virus. With the instantaneous spread by air transport of infected cases across
countries and continents, such diseases have potential to be profoundly
lethal to populations which have no immunity to them and could seriously
disrupt the sustainability of mass international air travel. (Witness the
effects of the swine flu epidemic in 1919 when population densities were
much less than they are now.)
Escherichia coli (E. coli).
