Health

Jeden Tag müssen Politiker in der ganzen Welt eine verwirrende Vielfalt von Entscheidungen treffen. Je mehr sie für sagen wir Bildung ausgeben, desto weniger steht für Krankenhäuser, Umweltschutz oder die Steigerung der landwirtschaftlichen Produktivität zur Verfügung. Lobbygruppen, Aktivisten und die Medien sprechen sich für bestimmte Anliegen aus - Solaranlagen, das Zika-Virus, das sofortige Schließen von Steuerschlupflöchern - während weniger populäre Themen wie Ernährung oder nicht übertragbare Krankheiten kaum wahrgenommen werden.

Politici na celém světě čelí každý den závratnému množství voleb. Čím více investují například do vzdělání, tím méně zbyde na provoz nemocnic, boj se znečištěním či na zvýšení zemědělské produktivity. Lobbistické skupiny, aktivisté a média prosazují určitá témata – solární panely, virus Zika, uzavírání mezer v daňovém systému – zatímco méně atraktivní témata jako výživa, nebo nepřenosné choroby, mohou zmizet z radaru.

Over recent decades Bangladesh has seen amazing improvement across many health indicators. Maternal mortality has decreased 75 per cent, infant mortality has halved, and life expectancy has surpassed that of both India and Pakistan. The progress has been so impressive that in 2013 The Lancet, one of the oldest and most prestigious medical journals in the world, devoted a six-part series to Bangladesh, calling it "a remarkable success story for health."

Every hour, tuberculosis kills nine Bangladeshis. Another seven die each hour from arsenic in drinking water. Simple and cheap solutions are available to avoid almost all these deaths.

Bangladesh has made incredible progress over recent years on many health indicators. But the country continues to face great challenges, like tuberculosis (TB) and arsenic, two of the biggest killers. Many other grave health issues remain too, including factors that threaten mothers and their children.

Air pollution is a major issue around the world. It kills seven million people annually-one in every eight people that die around the world. And, of course, air pollution is a well-known and much-complained-about fact in Bangladesh. Few major global cities suffer from air pollution worse than Dhaka. During the dry season, when dust is especially bad, pollution levels can reach up to 16 times higher than the World Health Organisation's air quality guideline.

Infectious diseases get all the attention. And for a long time, these diseases were what most people around the world died from. But as we are increasingly beating back infections and live to grow older, we start dying from what doctors call non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like heart disease, strokes, cancer, and diabetes. 

Se os meios de comunicação globais fossem a sua única fonte de informação, estaria perdoado por pensar que, no que respeita à saúde, a maior preocupação do mundo, neste momento, é o vírus Zika, e que, no ano passado, foi o Ébola – ou o SARS e a gripe das aves antes disso.
 

Si los medios de comunicación globales fueran su única fuente de información, se le podría perdonar por pensar que el mayor problema de salud del mundo en estos momentos es el virus Zika, o que el año pasado fue del Ébola o, antes el SARS y la gripe aviar.

During the dry season, Dhaka is one of the most polluted cities in the world. Air pollution levels during this period of the year reach 13-16 times higher than the international quality standard, and that outdoor air pollution kills 14,000of the city's residents annually.

The need to reduce air pollution in the capital may seem obvious. But using scarce resources to fight outdoor air pollution means less funding will be available from the national budget, international donors, or private citizens for other proposals that can do good.

If the global media were your only source of information, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world’s biggest health concern right now is the Zika virus, or that last year it was Ebola – or SARS and the Avian Flu before that.