It would be great if I could paint a very rosy picture of health in Jordan. True, the infant mortality rate has dropped and new and beautiful hospitals abound in Amman, the capital. Nevertheless, I think Jordan has many grave health problems.
Some problems stem from the use of outdated vaccines.
Even though some of the vaccines used to inoculate school children is outdated, the Ministry of Health has gone ahead and passed out the inoculations at the risk of the children being vaccinated. A few years back, many children got sick from such old vaccines and there were undisclosed reports of deaths. What makes such a practice even sadder is that little publicity was given to the use of the outdated vaccines and the government tried to cover up the fact that some children really did get sick from the inoculations and that even a few died. Then, there is the fact that many fast food places are quite unsanitary. I personally can cite a case of a store owner who made ice cream.