Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Thursday June 17, 1999
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

It issued a report saying the world has dangerously underestimated the risks from infectious diseases and may soon miss whatever opportunity there is to fight them.

"The World Health Organization is today issuing a wake-up call to the world's governments, decision makers and the private sector to take action against infectious diseases before it is too late, and before the window of opportunity we have to protect our selves is lost," Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of WHO, said in a statement.

Infectious disease is the biggest killer of young adults and children around the world, claiming 13 million lives a year. One in two people in developing countries dies of an infectious disease.

Cheap and easy ways exist to fight the six main infectious diseases -- tuberculosis, HIV infection, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis and diarrheal diseases. Yet, the report said, they are not being used widely enough.

"For instance, a simple means of preventing HIV transmission is education in schools," Dr. David Heymann, executive director at WHO for communicable diseases, told a news conference.

But 171 countries do not have education programs, although the estimated cost per capita per year is only 20 cents. And a year's supply of condoms costs $14 per person.

Six months of drugs to treat tuberculosis costs just $20 a person. Measles vaccinations cost 50 cents a person.

"Countries are not accepting this and donors are not funding it and all of us are not pushing for it," Heymann said. "So the guilt lies with all of us." Research is also behind schedule, in part because of a lack of a sense of urgency, Heymann said. "For example, there is no vaccine available for the top three infectious diseases -- tuberculosis, HIV and malaria," he said.

To illustrate how narrow the window of opportunity may be, Heymann cited the example of smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980. This was only possible after a last push in the former Soviet Union.

But HIV appeared just months later. "So we saw smallpox disappear and HIV appear," Heymann said.

The smallpox vaccine uses a live virus that is related to smallpox. Because HIV attacks the immune system, people infected with HIV cannot be given a vaccine using a live virus -- one volunteer with HIV died when he was given the smallpox vaccine, Heymann said.

So the 33 million people around the world who are now infected with HIV would not be able to get the smallpox vaccine today. The disease was eradicated just in the nick of time.

Such a window may be closing with gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause infertility and other problems.

Many strains are already resistant to both penicillin and tetracycline. "Governments are not willing or are not able to buy the second-line antibiotics which are more expensive," Heymann said.

The Global Health Council published a study showing Americans are concerned about infectious disease. More than 80 percent of the 1,200 adults surveyed by Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates said they were worried by the spread of global infectious diseases.

"The American people are worried," Nils Daulaire, president of the nonprofit council, told the news conference. "The American people see the need to act."
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