Five Global Health Predictions for 2009

Published January 02, 2009 @ 08:06PM PT

(Womens leprosy ward in India. photo credit: Erin Collins)

Antibacterial resistance will get worse

Antibacterial resistance will keep getting worse. Bacteria are evolving at a terrifying rate, because of overuse and abuse of antibiotics. As a result, more and more first-line antibiotics will become useless, in both the developing and developed world. A standard treatment for either malaria or tuberculosis will cease to be effective, and the WHO will remove it from the treatment guidelines.

Malnutrition

Rising world food prices are going to mean poor people go hungry more often. We’ll see substantial increases in rates of malnutrition. There will be more UN appeals to help the starving, and they will rarely be fully funded, as cash-strapped governments start to cut their donations.

Improvement in AIDS care

We’ll see longer average life spans for people living with AIDS. This will result from better access to HIV drugs because of new funding sources and cheaper generic drugs, better treatment of opportunistic infections, and more focus on nutritional support for people with HIV. The rates of new infections will continue to rise, but the infection itself will be better controlled throughout the world than ever before.

Scandal involving fake or contaminated drugs

A large amount of fake or contaminated pharmaceuticals will be discovered; something that has international reach and is on the scale of the melamine contamination this fall. Drugs and their ingredients travel long distances, with relatively little tracking. A problem with Chinese or Indian manufactured pharmaceuticals could affect most of the planet. While finding the source factory might not be difficult, removing all affected product from store shelves would be impossible. We’ll learn that the hard way in 2009.

Tropical diseases on new places

We will see traditionally tropical diseases like malaria, sleeping sickness, and dengue fever spread. The neglected tropical diseases will start to seem a lot scarier. At least one of them will be diagnosed repeatedly in a location that has never seen indigenous tropical disease before. (my money’s on Onchocerciasis)

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Comments (10)

I think that future scandals involving fake and/or contaminated drugs are going to revive the debate regarding patents and how much control pharmaceutical companies have over their intellectual property when considering the human impact of drugs and vaccines not being affordable enough for people who need them the most. This may be particularly prominent in the area of HIV treatment.

Posted by Vanessa Mason on 01/03/2009 @ 02:42AM PT
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We need to do all we can about spreading the word to family, friends, community, to avoid overuse of antibiotics, as well NOT to use anti-bacterial cleaning products in homes and businesses. Build immunity, not bacteria mutation!

Posted by Evie Romero Montoya on 01/03/2009 @ 10:39AM PT
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Evie, why don't you start an action about that?

Posted by Alanna Shaikh on 01/03/2009 @ 10:51AM PT
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5 predictions from the road.
1. Disability issues will be come an official part of Public Health with LESS special interest lobbying and focus on specific divisions/types of disease/disability. In Developed countries Families will be asked to take More financial/care responsibility for their long term ill and disabled young and adult children.

2. Less focus again on designer/organic foods as $ or lack of it rules the day. BUT also MORE FOCUS ON REMOVING the top disease causing foods, like those heavy on preservatives and processed.
3.New diseases will spring up as mother nature fights too many people on her planet.
4.Less is More will Rule and and Cool will be volunteering and doing charitable work. Very cool will be for those able to afford to volunteer overseas. ( like in public/global health)
5. Pharmacy and illegal Drug induced schizophrenia and bipolar disorder will increase. More focus on substance use and abuseand beginning of work/case studies to demonstrate and then eliminate root causes.

Posted by DARLENE MATTHEWS on 01/03/2009 @ 02:15PM PT
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1. The practice of Outsourcing of Medical Coding and Data Internationally will lead to Privacy Concerns / Violations, and Insurance Company Screening / Availability Issues.

2. The increased digitalization of medical data will enable Insurance Company Screening / Availability Issues.

3. Tuberculosis will keep evolving XDR-TB superstrains and become a growing problem.

4. The availability of safe clean water supply in a time of global environmental change will be a major growing issue from both a health and a political stand point.

5. Urban air pollution by will continue to move to, and pollute, the developing world.

6. Red tides (harmful algae blooms) affecting sea life food sources will be a growing problem.

7. Medical Advances in Nano Technology, Genome Mapping, and utilization of Stem Cells will lead to Many new cures - and a few new risks.

8. The practice of inspecting overseas drug factories will increase.

9. The ocean's dead zones will continue to spread as pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals and pharmaceuticals continue polluting the waterways.

10. Mass food irradiation will become a common practice.

11. The practice of maggots and leeches being used for medicinal purposes will increase.

Posted by Edward Snyder on 01/04/2009 @ 04:30PM PT
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Great post! My one addition: more pilots using mobile technology as a rapid information source in rural areas in the developing world!

Posted by Nathaniel Whittemore on 01/04/2009 @ 10:14PM PT
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One can safely predict that there will be two new massive public health issues that arise this year: one from India and one from China. Their large populations almost guarantee this.

Santeh Globale

Posted by Santeh Galobale on 01/05/2009 @ 03:14PM PT
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The Center for Global Development has an ongoing <a href="http://globalhealth.change.org/">Drug Resistance Working Group</a> to tackle the first of your predictions - keep an eye out for their forthcoming report!

Posted by Jessica Pickett on 01/14/2009 @ 08:29AM PT
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I must introduce here an unpopular subject, of which I see no mention yet. The subject I'm talking about is the use of tobacco in all it's forms. Supposedly, smoking and second hand smoke kill huge amounts of people, if the WHO is to be believed. Great sums of money are spent on tobacco prevention and yet I know of no one who has died of second hand smoke. I see here all kinds of old and new diseases springing up which are issues of tremendous importance. We, at Forces International (non-profit page) decry these expenditures on tobacco control and prohibition, and wish that global health organizations would dedicate their resources to the real problems outlined in this page.

Posted by Pat Glass on 02/03/2009 @ 05:25AM PT
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Another Global Health Prediction for 2009. In future years this will be known as the year when a new global movement to reduce childhood deaths from pneumonia was started; the year when a powerful new vaccine - the pneumococcal vaccine - was first introduced in Africa; and the year when we started to see reductions in the number of children dying from this disease which will grow substantially and consistently over time.

Posted by Leith Greenslade on 04/15/2009 @ 06:23AM PT
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Author

Alanna Shaikh has spent the last ten years immersed in global health; she has worked for NGOs, companies, universities, and the US government on projects that ranged from preventing antibacterial resistance to improving maternal and child health.