16-03 Health

Those bunk beds were a great memory as a child. I slept on the upper for three years when we lived in a small bungalow during the early years of WW2. And my brother slept down below.
It was where we both had measles, mumps, chickenpox, German measles and just ordinary flu and colds.
But I will never forget measles. I can understand why it is a major killer of children in less developed nations. It spreads like crazy and is scary awful. I was in bed for about ten days.
Those were the days when doctors would visit, and make the diagnosis after seeing the rash and taking our temperature. I remember coughing all the time, and mother putting a huge bowl of hot water in the room. It was before electric kettles were invented. And she was continuously getting us to drink fluids.
And when I was up and around it turned out that about two-thirds of the school had been infected. They just shut it down.
Then as a teenager studying history it turns out diseases like measles killed off native populations around the world. They were called European diseases then. Genetically, native populations did not have the immune systems Europeans had acquired over time.
It is hard to believe that about 200 million kids around the world have been vaccinated to prevent measles. That tells me childhood health is a global issue.
I find it difficult to believe that today there are young people who do not want their children to be vaccinated against these infectious diseases. They think the kids will get some form of autism.
The other big killers of children are diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis. But like measles, they are all preventable and curable.
Hard to believe that so many deaths of babies and children are linked to drinking water that contains nasty stuff from other people’s poo.
In so many parts of the world basics such as outhouses equipped with lime or simply washing your hands with soap and water is not part of daily life.
Kids drinking polluted water die from dehydration. And babies die because mothers are replacing breast milk with bottled milk made with bad water.
Interesting how animals that drink a lot of this water survive. It must be that they have evolved with stronger immune systems.
Then there is the issue of pollution. And the photo is from Delhi, India in which something like one of four children suffer from lung problems because of particles in the air.
It is easy to look at the issue of global health and its impact on children, and conclude that this is nature providing its own form of population control.
The numbers are unbelievable, something like five million plus children die each year from preventable diseases.
It is not a religious issue with me, but surely if we are going to bring people into this world, we should take responsibility for them.
Like child poverty, children’s health is a family and societal issue.
The second photo brings the issue home to those of us who think we are immune from the diseases that plague the undeveloped world. It shows refugees waiting to be examined in case they are carriers of disease.
And if we add climate change spreading disease and forcing people to move, then the eradication of diseases that kill children is an even bigger issue.
That’s the way I see it anyways.