CONTAGION: DEFEATING INFECTIOUS DISEASE Does the Bible hold important keys for overcoming the global challenge of infectious disease? Can religion play a role in promoting health and preventing illness? You’ll find the answers in this excerpt from Chapter 4 of our newest booklet, Biblical Principles of Health.
P
By Douglas S. Winnail
erceptive world leaders in government and medicine are beginning to realize that more money, medicines, research, and legislation will not win the battle against disease. Health systems in many nations are deteriorating under the strain of burgeoning populations and limited financial resources. New outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, severely test health care systems as nations struggle to respond. Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Director-General of the World Health Organization, acknowledged years ago that the goal of “health for all… remains elusive”—an illusion that keeps slipping over the horizon.1 Perhaps it is time to ask: Why, in the twenty-first century, are we still struggling to win the battle against disease? Have effective solutions been ignored? Are we overlooking powerful tools—provided by God—that could make tremendous inroads against the plague of infectious diseases that afflict and kill millions of people around the world? 1 2 3 4 5
A Global Curse In the early 1900s, infectious diseases were the leading cause of suffering and death in America and Europe. Improved sanitation, along with other medical developments, significantly reduced these plagues on those continents. Outside the developed world, however, we still see a staggering and sobering picture, as infectious diseases abetted by poverty ravage astonishing numbers of people. Preventable and curable illnesses like malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, and respiratory disease kill more than ten million people in less-developed nations every year—with children disproportionately affected.2, 3 The number of people who live with and suffer from these diseases is mind-boggling. More than 200 million people contract malaria each year, resulting in more than 400,000 fatalities—including the deaths of 300,000 children under the age of five—mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.4 It is estimated that 3.2 billion people—about 40 percent of the world’s population—are at risk of contracting and dying of malaria.5 In developing countries, diar-
Katherine Yester, “The Global War for Public Health,” Foreign Policy, November 16, 2009. “Global Report for Research on Infectious Diseases of Poverty,” World Health Organization, 2012, 9, https://www.who.int/tdr/publications/global_report/en/. Phillip Stevens, “Diseases of poverty and the 10/90 Gap,” International Policy Network, November 2004, 7. “Malaria in children under five,” World Health Organization, April 26, 2017, https://www.who.int/malaria/areas/high_risk_groups/children/en/. “Malaria,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 16, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/newsroom/topics/malaria/index.html.
12 Tomorrow’s World | May-June 2020
TomorrowsWorld.org
