if you could get rid of any disease in the world. what would you get rid of?

Question: if you could get rid of any disease in the world. what would you get rid of?
- Keywords:
  cure,
  disease
Asked by anon-186458 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 5 Nov 2018.
- Catherine Smith answered on 5 Nov 2018:
  
  Tough one! I am going to say flu. Even though it can be mild, it is common enough that it has a huge overall impact on population health. It also affects people all over the world, and can spread very easily, meaning that it has potential to cause huge pandemics (see 2009 “swine flu”). It has most severe impacts for vulnerable people (young children, older adults, people with weakened immune system). Finally, because the virus evolves rapidly, it is difficult and expensive to develop a vaccine for – each year a new flu vaccine has to be made to combat the type of virus in circulation.
- Danny Ward answered on 5 Nov 2018:
  
  Although I currently work on bacterial infectious diseases, the one I wish we could get rid of would be cancer. Its caused by our own bodies and is a non-infectious disease but it has caused so much pain and upset around the world. Thankfully there are many talented scientists working on finding cures for all the different types of cancer.
- Trystan Leng answered on 5 Nov 2018:
  
  That’s a really tough question. I would say HIV. It currently infects 36.9 million people globally, and there is currently no cure. Some people are born with HIV, as it can be transmitted from a mother to her child. Because of its structure, it is very hard to develop a vaccine against. Untreated, a person infected with HIV will develop AIDS, which is a disease that allows other infections and cancers to flourish. Thankfully, there are treatments now that make living with HIV much better, and there is lots of research going on into its control, and maybe one day a cure.
- Raquel Medialdea Carrera answered on 5 Nov 2018:
  
  That’s a brilliant question. I think I would get rid of Malaria. It is one of the most widespread Infectious diseases with over 200 million getting infected every year ( that’s over 3 times the population of UK!!).
  
  It still kills millions of children and adults mainly in developing countries! That’s really sad and worrying. Moreover, there is no vaccine against it.
- Verity Hill answered on 5 Nov 2018:
  
  That’s a great question! I think I would have to say HIV, because it is still such a huge issue for so many people (36.9 million as Trystan says).
  It often infects the most excluded people in a society – for example in the UK the most at risk people are injecting drug users, who are often on the edges of society. It still carries a huge stigma all over the world, and people hide their diagnosis from friends and family so that they can continue live in their communities without fear. Even though we can now treat it very well with drugs called anti-retrovirals, many people across the world don’t have access to these drugs, and so continue to pass it to their children and sexual partners. HIV still destroys people’s whole lives!
  Also, on a biological level, because (left untreated) HIV makes your immune system not work properly, it’s possible that it helped new diseases jump into humans from other animals because they didn’t have to avoid the human immune system. If we got rid of HIV, we reduce opportunities for other diseases to get going!

Question: if you could get rid of any disease in the world. what would you get rid of?

Comments