ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 2, 1995                   TAG: 9505020116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GENEVA                                 LENGTH: Medium

POVERTY EQUALS ILLNESS IN U.N. HEALTH SURVEY

Poverty is the greatest underlying cause of death, disease and suffering worldwide, the United Nations says in its first survey on the state of the world's health, to be issued today.

More than half the world's 5.6 billion people cannot get the most essential drugs, and about one-third of the world's children are undernourished, officials said Monday in summarizing the 120-page World Health Report.

Other findings were:

More than 2 billion people are sick in the world at any one time.

Infectious diseases and parasites kill more than 16 million people a year.

More than half of the world's women now use contraception, up from 10 percent in 1960.

In rich countries, five babies out of every 1,000 die before their first birthday. In the poorest nations, 161 die. Women in developing countries are 13.5 times more likely to die in childbirth.

The World Health Organization estimates over 13 million adults were infected with the AIDS virus in 1994 and another 6,000 people join that list each day.

Smoking is the largest single preventable cause of illness and death, according to the report. It kills six people a minute and 3 million people a year and current trends indicate 10 million per year will die by 2020.

Another worry is growing unemployment, it said. Long-term unemployment is creating a new underclass in rich nations while in the developing world lack of social security causes even greater problems.

Previous successes are encouraging, it said, noting a 25 percent reduction in infant mortality since 1980 and extension of vaccination programs to 80 percent of the world's children in 1990. World-wide, life expectancy has increased by four years to 65 since 1980.

WHO said it has specific health goals for the next five years, which include eradicating polio, measles and tropical guinea worm disease, as well as ending tetanus in newborns, leprosy and deficiencies in vitamin A and iodine.

The full report is to be issued on Tuesday. A 15-page summary was released on Monday.

AP-DS-05-01-95 1451E 


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