Professional Documents
Culture Documents
•Average life expectancy for
continent is 51
•15% of children die in their first
year of life
•Diseases that kill Africans are under
control in other parts of the world
•Reasons for high rate of disease in
Africa
> Susceptible due to
poor diet
> Lack of knowledge of
disease prevention
> Poor sanitation, lack of
clean water
> Very few doctors
> Lack of hospitals and
clinics
> Lack of medicine
•Leading Diseases
> Malaria
97 million cases a
year
a million children
die each year
spread by mosquitos
> Yellow Fever
serious disease
die, or survive with
immunity
spread by mosquitos
> Sleeping Sickness
10,000 new cases a
year
almost always fatal
spread by tsetse fly
> River Blindness
entire villages
infected, all adults lose
eyesight
spread by parasitic
worm
> Guinea worm
3 foot long worm grows
slowly inside body
emerges slowly, usually
through the foot
must come out on its own,
takes weeks
if pulled and broken can
cause death
caused by parasitic worm
> Leprosy
under control in rest
of the world
disfiguring disease
caused by germs
> Tuberculosis
under control in
much of world
respiratory disease
caused by germs
>AIDS (originated in Africa)
epidemic in Africa and
transmitted heterosexually
70% of worldwide cases
and 80% of deaths are in
Africa
25 million cases in South
Africa alone
>Ebola
deadly virus
bleed through pores of
skin and organs liquify
not epidemic because
carriers die before they
can spread it