Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
new national security needs to identify, treat, and prevent the diseases their troops
encountered in the many exotic locations where they were now deployed. at the
height of the cold war, the success of the wHo-led smallpox eradication campaign
demonstrated that ideological differences could be overcome in the name of global
health. with the ensuing collapse of the Soviet Union and the spread of openness to
regions of the globe where it had long been denied, there was great anticipation that
chief among its fruits would be significant improvements in the health and welfare
of citizens everywhere.
Post-coldwar globalisation created a new generation of possibilities and resources
to save lives, increase life expectancy, and improve the quality of human health
and life. It brought and spread new knowledge, diagnostic techniques, therapeutic
options, and medicines to treat some of the most important diseases. these were
delivered by health professionals with ever more training and specialised knowledge
and received by a more informed citizenry taking control of their own health and
life. there emerged a greater awareness of the social, economic, environmental, and
political determinants of health. the advent of low-cost and rapid communications
and transportation promised to spread information, assistance, and wealth to foster
health everywhere in the world.
but globalisation also spread disease and death (Drager and beaglehole 2001).
the rapid increase in social and economic interconnectedness led to new health
threats and the re-emergence of old health threats long thought to be under control.
In the span of just over two decades, HIv/aIDS has gone from being unknown to
science to being the single most important infectious disease in the world. In some
countries it has prevalence rates so high that it has become a significant threat to
economic and national security and, potentially, to national survival itself (Price-
Smith 1999; Peterson 2002). while many now receive affordable treatment, even
more become infected each year. other diseases such as tuberculosis (tb) and
vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria are re-emerging as major
global health threats, with their control complicated by the development of resistance
to many of the existing therapeutics agents used in their treatment (osterholm 2005).
biological and political resistance to many of the proven medicines and treatments
long relied on is, in many cases, on the increase. Globalisation increases the rate and
means for health threats to be transplanted from one region of the world to another.
at the same time, globalisation has enabled healthcare professionals badly
needed in their own poor countries to migrate to better jobs and opportunities in
the already abundantly endowed north. It has further facilitated the export and
marketing of behaviour and lifestyle choices associated with adverse health effects.
this has given rise to new epidemics of conditions and chronic diseases associated
with alcohol, smoking, and consumption of processed foods, such as diabetes,
obesity, and various cancers, as well as a range of diseases associated with exposure
to a long list of environments pollutants (beaglehole and Yach 2003). this comes at
a time when governments around the world have been forced by persistent poverty,
financial crisis, natural disaster, and war to watch their public health systems decline
and the economic and health inequalities among their citizens rise (Garrett 1996).
