Lives cut short

We hear that globally life expectancy is increasing. The global average is apparently 66, compared with 30-40 in the early 20th century (and 20-30 in ancient Rome!). According to an article I just saw from the Scientific American “in the U.S. today, life expectancy is about 77 years ….. Most of the prior advances in life expectancy … reflect dramatic declines in mortality risks in childhood and early adult life. Because the young can be saved only once and because these risks are now so close to zero … future gains in life expectancy will … require adding decades of life to people who have already survived seven decades or more … i.e. … the underlying processes of aging that increase vulnerability to all the common causes of death will have to be modified.”. Tell that to the Africans and they’ll either laugh or cry.

This graph just caught my eye and made me catch my breath. I find it to be a very frightening picture.

It’s a graphic representation of the incredible effect that AIDS is having on the life-span of Africans*. Of course it’s all over the television, particularly the pictures of the children affected when their mother contracts HIV/AIDS and gradually (sometimes rapidly) wastes away. But sometimes just a few lines can make as much impact as an emotional picture. Images like this reinforce the impact of such scourges. From an average expectancy of around 50 years in the late-80s to around 40 years in the early 2000s. In Sierra Leone it is dipping into the mid-30s. Not only does such a decline impact family life (everyday, everywhere family members and friends move from one funeral to another) but countries can see themselves running out of healthy working people. And when that happens the consequences are dire.

I’m in no way going to pontificate over “the evils of sex” not least as there are many, many totally innocent suffers of this plague. But, whatever your opinions, this graph makes scary viewing.

You can read some very detailed insights into global human development in this UNDP report Measuring Human Development and there is a nice graphic and more info here (notice where all the red and darker colours are centred … ).

*Sub-Saharan Africa has just over 10 percent of the world’s population but is home to more than 60 percent of all people living with HIV—25.8 million. In 2005, an estimated 3.2 million people in the region became newly infected, while 2.4 million adults and children died of AIDS (Source)

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