Malaria and TB remain the biggest killers in a militarised region that gives scant priority to health care.
There are some legacies of the past that refuse to be showpieced on a museum shelf. In the South Asian Subcontinent, even at the beginning of a century as medically advanced as this one, it is 'ancient' diseases like tuberculosis (TB), malaria, acute respiratory infections (ARI), including pneumonia and influenza, and diarrhoeal diseases, that remain the leading killers. Unlike smallpox that has been consigned to medical history books, these diseases continue to stalk the region wreaking havoc on the population. And given the political economy of the region, it is unlikely that they will bid farewell anytime soon.
Despite gigantic strides in modern medicine and the discovery of powerful anti-TB and -malarial drugs, it is significant that more people are dying today of the two diseases than in any other period in history, especially in the developing world. About 98 percent of the two mil-lion TB deaths every year and 95 percent of the eight million new cases are in the developing world. In South East Asia, TB kills 2000 people every day. In Bangladesh, it afflicts more than 60 percent of the adult population and in India every year, 500000 people die of the disease.
The world's most important tropical disease even now—malaria—kills more people than any other communicable disease except TB. It is the major public health problem in 90 countries and is endemic in eight South East Asian countries. According to a UNICEF report, it kills 3000 children every day, and is one of the major causes of under-five deaths. According to a 1998 WHO report on infectious diseases that affect under-five children, 3.5 million died of ARI, 2.2 million of diarrhoeal diseases, 1.5 million of TB, and 0.9 million of measles.