Posts tagged World Health Organisation

Chronic Diseases Bigger Threat than Terrorism

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 29.02.2008 (IPS): International health experts and activists are calling for immediate global action to avert the looming epidemic of preventable chronic diseases which will kill 388 million people in the next decade, threatening economies in the developed and developing worlds.

Poor diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use are said to be contributing to preventable chronic diseases including heart disease/stroke, diabetes, cancers and chronic lung disease responsible for nearly 60 percent of the world’s
deaths.

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Polio never far away in the jet age

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 28.07.2007 (The Australian): On a sweltering February day in 1951, one-year-old Maura Outterside’s tiny body was gripped by high fever and muscle pain. As she became non-responsive, her parents wrapped her in cold towels and took her to St George Hospital in Sydney. A lumbar puncture confirmed every parent’s worst nightmare in those days — poliomyelitis, the viral disease responsible for crippling hundreds of thousands of children during the 20th century. Polio epidemics from 1930 to 1970 afflicted 40,000 Australians, including media tycoon Kerry Packer, talkback radio host John Laws and former Labor leader Kim Beazley.

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