Disease is ravaging Africa
Pastor Dale Morgan
Disease is ravaging Africa*
POSTED: 1540 GMT (2340 HKT), February 12, 2007
Story Highlights
• Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is on an 11-nation tour in Africa
• Carter is urging better health training and sanitation to help prevent
diseases
• More than half of Ethiopia's population lives on less than $1 a day
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter urged
better health training and sanitation Monday to help eradicate
preventable diseases in Africa.
Carter, who is on an 11-nation tour in Africa, said problems such as
malaria and river blindness -- which is caused by a worm that breeds in
fast-flowing rivers -- are ravaging the continent.
"More than seven percent of Ethiopia's 77 million people are susceptible
to river blindness," he told ministers and diplomats from several
African nations. "Children are particularly vulnerable to the disease
and this is unnecessary."
Carter was scheduled to travel Tuesday to the western Ethiopian region
of Jimma, where his organization is working to supply medication and
materials to combat river blindness.
According to the Carter Center, the former president's
international-affairs think tank, 18 million people in 37 countries,
most in Africa, live with the disease.
Carter and his wife founded the center to promote human rights and
improve the quality of life in the Third World.
Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries, and more than half of
the population live on less than $1 a day.
Carter also said simple tools to combat malaria, such as bed netting,
could save 60,000 to 100,000 lives a year in Ethiopia. The Carter Center
recently purchased 3 million mosquito nets for distribution in western
Ethiopia.