Health threats like HIV, AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis kill millions of people across the globe every year. Yet in wealthy countries like the US, these diseases are afterthoughts. In underdeveloped countries like parts of Africa, India and Southeast Asia these diseases remain large threats. Combined, these diseases kill more than 5 million people per year, the equivalent of a full 747 airplane crashing every 44 minutes. With numbers like this, why aren’t we more concerned about these diseases?
One journalist believes that these diseases are not epidemics anymore because wealthy countries have defeated them, leaving poor underdeveloped countries to fend for themselves. According to Stat news, once a pandemic stops being an acute threat to life in high-income countries, the urgency drops, the focus shifts, and resource flows dwindle. This is what’s happened with earlier pandemics, such as HIV and AIDS, and tuberculosis: Decisive action was taken to contain the threat to life in rich countries, but it was then allowed to linger in poorer, more vulnerable countries, killing millions.
