Lack of access to clean water and poor sanitation are also common in environments where hunger and disease are major problems, and they exacerbate both.
Diseases such as measles and pertussis are very rarely fatal in developed
countries, where nearly everyone receives immunizations against a host of diseases in early childhood. Childhood diseases are still a deadly danger in many
poor countries.
Through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the United States has supported
mass immunization campaigns that have made a big difference. In the 1980s,
efforts became more focused with the creation of the Child Survival Initiative
within USAID. To this day, the program provides basic immunizations for
100 million children annually; it has already saved millions of lives.
Communicable diseases don’t respect national borders. In 1977, history
was made when smallpox became the first disease to be eradicated by human
effort. Eradication has prevented further suffering and death from this ageold plague; as a bonus, the United States saves
about $150 million every year because smallpox
vaccinations are no longer necessary.
In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was formed by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the World Health
Organization. In one generation, the number
of cases has been reduced by more than 99 percent. The struggle to contain polio—reducing
the countries where it is endemic from 125 in
1988 to four in 2010—has included the vaccination of more than 2.5 billion children so far.
Eradication of polio seems within reach. One
of the four countries that still had new polio cases in 2010 was India, which recently announced
a breakthrough: there have been no new cases
for a full year. But eradication is all-or-nothing.
China had not seen a new case of polio since 1999 until the past couple of
years, when the virus apparently traveled from Pakistan. The United States is
supporting what will hopefully be the final push under a new GPEI plan.
Americans are also supporting new campaigns against