Return to the Third World

“Jaded Julie, I’m certain that you recall the unpleasant details of our imaginary trip to the third world last week. Remember those local people who were staring at us as we were inspecting their hanging latrine? They sure didn’t look very happy.”

“All of the details were unpleasant, Curmudge. Maybe those folks thought that we were going to add to the overcrowding in their primitive toilet. No need to worry. I’d suffer extreme constipation before I’d use that grubby thing.”

“That assumes, of course, that you didn’t have diarrhea, which you would have gotten within a few hours after drinking the local water. But what I also noticed was that many of the locals appeared to be in poor health.”

“You’re right, Curmudge. Some of the children had distended bellies, and I saw a woman with a grotesquely enlarged leg. She looked as if she were part elephant.”

“That’s why they call her disease elephantiasis, Julie. You must have cut class the day they covered tropical diseases in nursing school. Actually, there may have been several of the locals who weren’t able to come down to peer at the visitors from far away. They were bed-ridden because they were too ill with malaria or AIDS.”

“I’m becoming convinced that life is extremely fragile in undeveloped countries.”

“Here are some data on the top five diseases that show just how fragile it is (1):
Lower respiratory infections (pneumonia, etc.): Over 4 million deaths per year.
HIV/AIDS: Over 3 million deaths from AIDS in 2004. 39.4 million infected with HIV.
Malaria: Between 1 and 5 million deaths per year. 300-500 million cases per year.
Diarrhea: 2.2 million deaths per year. 4 billion people infected per year.
Tuberculosis: 2 million deaths per year. 2 billion people are infected.”

“I’ve read the list. The next five are measles, whooping cough, tetanus, meningitis, and syphilis. Then there are the so-called 13 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that infect 1.4 billion people worldwide (2). The most common of these is roundworm; that’s what gave distended bellies to the kids we saw. Elephantiasis (I just looked it up), snail fever, and river blindness are on this list. So Curmudge, why aren’t people in the industrialized world more concerned about these people and their diseases?”

“My speculation, Julie, is that people are very insular by nature. We read about the problems of our own world every day, and those are the ones we are concerned about. If we perceive a personal threat from our immediate surroundings, we’ll cling to that belief as strongly as if it were a religion. Dogma usually trumps objective science.”

“If that’s the case, we’re apt to become preoccupied with the first threat that someone puts into our head.”

“That seems likely, Julie. Skeptics probably sleep better at night, and realists do everything in their power to solve real problems like those we’ve seen in the Third World.”

“Specifically Curmudge, what can we do?”

“As you said last week, everybody should revisit their priorities. Senior citizens can open their checkbooks, and as a nurse, Jaded Julie, you would be a great asset on the mission trip from Affinity to Peru next fall.”

(1) Top killer diseases in the developing world. http://www.alertnet.org/topkillerdiseases.htm
(2) Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases. http://globalnetwork.org/