Extreme poverty & health in low-income countries

Today, over 700 million people live in extreme poverty. That means less than $1.9 a day. There are a number of diseases that mainly affect these vulnerable populations, such as malaria, HIV, malnutrition and parasitic worms. This not only causes direct suffering. It also worsens people’s conditions to earn a living, participate in educational efforts and improve their living situation. As families try to compensate for high infant mortality, birth rates tend to increase.

We know how to prevent and treat many of these diseases. It is also cost-effective – tablets against parasites and mosquito nets that protect against malaria cost only a few dollars. Yet efforts are underfunded and the diseases cause millions of deaths annually. The best opportunities for those who want to work on the problem seem to be donating money to effective charities, working to ensure that resources already spent on global health go where they do the most good, researching cost-effective interventions or working in, or starting, organizations implementing successful health interventions.