In the article “The continuing challenge of infectious diseases”, authors Karen H Keddy and Tesfaye Gobena discuss how disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) were attributed to diseases globally and their associations with other pathogens. However, foremost what exactly is a DALY? A DALY is a measure that combines years of life lost because of premature mortality and years of life lost because of time that you live in states of worse health, or years of healthy life lost due to disability; a singular DALY represents the loss of the equivalent of one year of full health.
Studies showed that primary diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, affect primarily the rich and upper-middle-income countries, low-income and poorer countries were more impacted by infectious diseases. It was found that the greatest area where pathogen-associated DALYs were in sub-Saharan Africa, and it was even more than the global DALY proportions for infectious diseases.
The article discusses how malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS were the top pathogens associated with DALYs, and the burden on people due to these was high(many people were impacted).
The incidents and deaths because of Malaria mostly all occurred in Africa. Even though there was a global decrease in DALYs attributable to malaria, people in western sub-Saharan Africa still faced an increase in these cases.
The global standardized DALY rate for AIDS increased as well but the global DALYs associated with tuberculosis have decreased globally.
The study also mentions the drastic impact of Covid 19 on the global age-standardised all-cause mortality rate. It was shown that before the rate had decreased 62.8% but increased again due to the pandemic.
Furthermore, countries, primarily low-income and middle-income countries with big numbers of malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis, had troubles especially when it came to the pandemic. They faced difficulty with the vaccine, overfilled hospitals, and lockdowns leaving people with a problem with no solutions. However, although it is evident how to move forward and aid these countries, it has been an issue to sustain these reforms and continue moving forward.
Works Cited
“Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).” World Health Organization (WHO), https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/158. Accessed 24 April 2024.
Karen, Keddy H., and Gobena Tesfaye. “The continuing challenge of infectious diseases.” The Lancet, 2024, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00219-6/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email. Accessed 24 April 2024.
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