Goal 6: Combat Disease

Although infectious diseases exist throughout the world, they disproportionately affect the poor.  HIV/AIDS is the third most common cause of death in the poorest nations. 95% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Tuberculosis is nearly 20 times more common in developing countries than rich ones. Parasitic infections affect over 1 billion people in developing nations but hardly any in rich nations.

Most of these infections are treatable, if not curable.  However, even the cheapest medications are often too expensive for the poorest countries.

Millennium Development Goal 6 aims to fight these major diseases.  The Goal promotes prevention and treatment alike, while also fighting the underlying impoverished conditions that permit these diseases to spread so easily.

Despite massive increases in international funding to slow these diseases, much remains to be done.  Significant investment and public donations will be needed to meet Goal 6 by 2015. 

Learn how you can help.

TARGET 1: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

HIV is a lethal virus found in human blood and body fluids.  It is transmitted from person to person through sexual contact, sharing needles, and less commonly now by blood transfusions.  Infected mothers can transmit HIV to their babies during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding.  All people with HIV will eventually die of AIDS if they do not receive treatment.

HIV/AIDS IS RAMPANT. Worldwide, 33 million people are infected by HIV—including 21 million in sub-Saharan Africa.  AIDS kills 2 million people each year, and 15 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS—including 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa.

PREVENTION STRATEGIES ARE ESSENTIAL TO SLOWING DISEASE TRANSMISSION. Prevention strategies include public education (through media, school, etc.), condom distribution, and male circumcision.  Treating HIV also helps lower the risk of infecting others by reducing levels of the virus in blood.

SPREAD OF HIV IS SLOWING. As a result of increased prevention efforts, the number of new HIV infections has dropped from 3 million/yr to 2.7 million/yr in the last decade.  However, this still represents 7500 new infections every day.

MOST PEOPLE STILL HAVE AN INACCURATE UNDERSTANDING OF HIV. Accurate knowledge about HIV is crucial to prevent disease transmission.  Although knowledge about HIV/AIDS is slowly improving, only 3 out of 10 men and 2 out of 10 women in developing nations have an accurate understanding of HIV.

TARGET 2: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS to all those who need it.

There is currently no cure to eliminate HIV, and there is no vaccine to prevent it.  Treatment for HIV consists of using multiple antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that simply hold the virus at bay—not eliminate it.  These drugs are expensive, and people must take them for the rest of life.

INTERNATIONAL FUNDING HAS HELPED RAPIDLY EXPAND HIV TREATMENT. Today, over 3 million people in developing countries are on HIV treatment—ten times greater than just 5 years ago.  International funding from The Global Fund and the United States President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been crucial to this rapid expansion by offsetting the tremendous cost of HIV treatment for poorer countries.

FEWER PEOPLE ARE DYING EACH YEAR OF AIDS. 2 million people die each year from AIDS.  However, this annual death toll has been dropping since 2005—likely because of increasing access to life-saving treatment, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

STILL, MANY MORE PEOPLE NEED ACCESS TO TREATMENT. Despite rapid progress, HIV is spreading quicker than treatment is expanding.  For every 1 person started on treatment, 3 new people are infected with HIV.  In 2007, 1 million pregnant mothers with HIV were still untreated, putting their babies at high risk for infection.

TARGET 3: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Malaria is a parasitic infection transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical climates.  It can be fatal if not treated, especially for children.

MALARIA RAVAGES SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Each year, between 190 and 330 million people get malaria, and 1 million people die from it—mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.

STOPPING MALARIA REQUIRES BED NETS AND BETTER MEDICATIONS. Bed nets with built-in insecticide are cheap and effective in preventing malaria, but only 1 out of 5 people in Africa has one.  Additionally, malaria is now resistant to many common cheaper medications.  To stop malaria, ongoing investment in bed nets and effective medications is essential.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial lung infection that is often fatal, especially for people who are already sick with other diseases like HIV.  Because it is travels from one person to another through air, TB is spread most easily in poor, crowded settings.

TB RATES REQUIRE MORE AGGRESSIVE ACTION. Each year, over 9 million people get sick with TB, and over 1 million people die from it—most in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.  Because of international efforts to stop TB, the number of new infections is decreasing—but only slowly.  Infection rates continue to rise in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Europe.

STOPPING TB REQUIRES BETTER MEDICATIONS AND SOCIAL CHANGE. TB is becoming resistant to many common medications, largely because of improper and incomplete treatment in the past.  Stopping TB will therefore require improvements in the poor living conditions that favor its spread as well as ongoing investment in effective treatment strategies.

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are often “neglected” because they are essentially nonexistent in richer developed nations.  These parasitic infections are immensely common in poorer nations, where unclean water, poor sanitation, and malnutrition contribute to their spread.

NTDs CAUSE A SIGNIFICANT BURDEN. These diseases affect over 1 billion people in developing nations.  They can result in permanent disfigurement, blindness, impaired childhood growth, pregnancy complications, missed work and school, and increased risk for other infections.

NTDs ARE CHEAP TO PREVENT AND TREAT. Generic medications exist to prevent and cure the NTD’s.  In many places, it costs just $0.50 to prevent the 7 most common NTD’s in a person for an entire year.  In other places, some diseases have been eliminated altogether.