Patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis, certain cancers, and other deadly diseases also need medications that they cannot possibly obtain because of price. Diseases such as polio, which should have been eradicated well before the year 2000 through global immunization, still harm the lives of children and adults throughout the world. The crushing effects of poverty, often compounded by civil war and hatred, have resulted in denial of vaccines and medical care to those most in need. Officials cautioned that the numbers could shoot up again during the next four months because of a hang-up in lab certifications, but progress has been swift in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which in 1999 accounted for 53 percent of all new cases. So far this year, the three countries account for 31 percent of cases.
Children are often the silent victims of denied medical care.
Five dollars worth of medicine could have saved her, but it wasn t available in her native country. In 1974, Gary and Cris Embleton fought to save her. The global nature of the problem is underscored by the World Health Organization's , World Health Report 2000 . The impact is more severe on the poor, who are driven into deeper poverty by lack of financial protection against ill-health. In trying to buy health from their own pockets, sometimes they only succeed in lining the pockets of others.