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War allows deadly epidemic's return
Sleeping sickness, an ancient disease doctors once hoped to eradicate from Africa, is making a deadly return visit courtesy of the 15-year civil war in Sudan.
The disease is caused by a parasite spread through the bites of tsetse flies. The parasite multiplies in the blood and lymph nodes, bringing fever, pain and the debilitating weakness from which the disease gets its name. If untreated, the parasites can eventually infect the brain, leading to seizures, dementia and eventual death.
In the 1980s Belgian doctors in southwestern Sudan had managed to reduce the number of people infected with sleeping sickness to less than 1 percent of the populace. When civil war struck the country, the resulting breakdowns in civil order, transportation and communication forced Sudanese and international health workers out of more remote areas of the country. Fighting also forced refugees farther into the wilds and into neighboring countries.
When international-aid workers began returning to Sudan in recent years, they found the health-care system in complete collapse. With no medicines or medical personnel to keep it at bay, the deadly disease had regained lost ground to the point that workers estimate that from 20 to 40 percent of the population in some areas is infected.
Although the disease is curable, few people and governments can afford the cost for treatment-estimated at $300 to $600 per patient. Meanwhile, health officials worry that sleeping sickness is continuing its march into neighboring countries-specifically the Central African Republic and Congo (formerly Zaire)-which have suffered their own political upheavals and civil wars in recent years.
This tragic saga reminds us of the deadly connection between war, famine and disease described in Bible prophecies. (Sources: The New York Times, Matthew 24:6-7, Revelation 6:3-8.)
Playing God with the earth
The research journal Science recently documented some of the enormous impact mankind has had on the planet. "We are tinkering with our life support systems" and "we don't realize the consequences of what we are doing," cautions Jane Lubchenco, former president of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and contributor to the magazine's 31-page report.
The report states:
Humans have altered or cleared 40 to 50 percent of the earth's land surface, drastically altering the plant and animal communities in those areas.
Because of land conversion and competition from invading species, 18 percent of mammals, 11 percent of birds, 8 percent of plants and 5 percent of fish species are threatened with extinction.
One fourth of all bird species are already extinct.
Of the world's fisheries, 66 percent are being used to their maximum or depleted faster than they are being replaced.
Fossil fuel burning adds some 5.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year.
Man consumes half of the world's usable fresh water, using most of it for farming. We have built 36,000 dams worldwide, and 98 percent of all U.S. rivers have been diverted or dammed.
Several major rivers, including the Nile, the Ganges and the Colorado, are mostly used up before they reach their mouths. (Sources: Science, Knight-Ridder News Service.)
Lost: 100 nuclear weapons
According to a senior advisor to Russian president Boris Yeltsin, an unspecified number of small nuclear weapons were diverted to the KGB in the late 1970s and early 1980s-subsequently being omitted from arms inventories. Moreover, former Soviet general Alexander Lebed says that Russia has lost track of about 100 small nuclear bombs.
Concerned observers say that these missing Soviet bombs and also unattended uranium supplies (sought by Iraq) should seriously concern the U.S. and its Western allies. In the hands of terrorists or outlaw nations, these lost weapons pose a serious threat to Western and world security. (Source: The Los Angeles Times.)
AIDS epidemics predicted for Asia, Eastern Europe
The World Bank, predicting that the incidence of AIDS is about to explode in India, China and Eastern Europe, advocates an aggressive prevention program to include more-widespread condom distribution and needle exchanges for drug users. World Bank officials hope to contain the epidemic that has killed 6 million people and infected another 23 million worldwide.
"Failure to act now will cost millions of lives," warned Martha Ainsworth, one of the bank's senior economists and author of a report advocating such prevention programs. The bank has spent $800 million since 1986 on programs to prevent the spread of AIDS.
The impact of the disease has been devastating, especially in many poorer countries. According to the World Bank, in Burkina Fasso and Ivory Coast, two African countries, AIDS has decreased average life expectancies by 11 years. In Zimbabwe the disease has caused average life expectancy to plunge by a shocking 22 years.
In many such nations almost half of new AIDS cases are among women. In taking the lives of so many young adults, the disease is rapidly erasing gains in quality of life that took years to achieve.
Although few admit it, AIDS is largely preventable. It is spread primarily through illicit sexual contact and use of mind-altering drugs, activities that the Creator of mankind condemns. (Sources: The New York Times, Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 18:22; 1Corinthians 6:9-10; 2Timothy 3:1-5.)
New AIDS treatments falter
In recent years scientists and physicians hailed new AIDS treatments that appeared to halt the virus's advance and bring considerable improvement to patients in advanced stages of the disease. However, just as some scientists predicted, the good news has turned out to be short-lived; patients are again losing ground in about half the cases involving such treatments.
The treatments utilizing three powerful drug combinations initially revolutionized AIDS care and enabled some patients to resume normal lives. For many, virus levels dropped so low that they could not be detected through standard testing.
But now, according to a recent study, after several years' improvement in patients the virus has apparently grown resistant to the drugs and has resurfaced in just over half such patients. Scientists are unsure what this means for the patients' prospects for longterm survival.
Meanwhile, researchers conducting several other studies making use of the best available AIDS treatments have concluded that, in spite of their best efforts, medical science cannot entirely eliminate the virus from those infected.
Further complicating treatment is the cost of the drug therapy-some $15,000 per patient per year-and that the treatment is ineffective in about one in three AIDS patients. (Source: The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times.)
Christians exit the Middle East
The Christian exodus from the Mideast is unprecedented. Two million have left from these ancient lands in the past five years. Some 12 million remain.
Half of the Christian population has left Lebanon in the past 20 years. Principally it is the young who are leaving these Middle Eastern nations, causing observers to wonder where subsequent believers are going to come from.
According to Christian accounts, persecution and loss of liberty have been a factor in this loss of numbers. But the nations these adherents flee from fiercely challenge this contention.
In a global sense, persecution against Christians is definitely growing. According to authoritative sources, an estimated 200 million to 250 million Christians are at risk in countries where these kinds of incidents regularly occur. (Sources: The Independent, Reader's Digest.)
War takes 18 million lives since 1945
According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, nearly 18 million people have been killed in wars and other armed conflicts since the close of World War II. Parts of Africa and Asia have accounted for more than 15 million of these war fatalities. (Source: The Times (London).)
Adultery and divorce stalk China
In China the ratio of divorce to marriage has quadrupled in the last decade. In addition, prostitution is now a boom industry in large Chinese cities. Family violence against women has also become a major problem.
Until 1980 adulterers could be sent to jail or punished by the neighborhood communes or companies for conduct unbecoming a Chinese citizen and employee. China's economic boom is not without its unwanted social spin-offs. (Source: The Independent on Sunday.)
Drugs spell disaster for more than just users
A recent study in The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that people who are not users of illegal drugs, but who live in households of users, are killed at a rate 11 times higher than those who live in drug-free homes. The study also reported that, in households where one or more members are alcoholics, nondrinkers run a 70 percent greater risk of being killed than nondrinkers in other households.
Earlier studies showed that 40 to 70 percent of homicide victims had alcohol in their blood. Alcohol abuse was also shown to triple the risk of suicide, while those who abuse both alcohol and illegal drugs run a 16.6-times-greater risk for suicide and 12-times-greater risk of being a homicide victim than nonabusers. Those who live with drug users also showed a higher rate of suicide than the general population.
In preparing the report, researchers studied medical examiners' findings on 438 suicides and 388 homicides covering a three- to five-year period, then compared victims' proximity to drug and alcohol abusers with control groups of nearby residents. (Source: The New York Times.)
-John Ross Schroeder and Scott Ashley
© 1998-2022 United Church of God, an International Association
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Keywords: epidemic natural resources AIDS Middle East alcohol abuse
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