In industrialized nations many diseases have been brought under control, yet disease remains a huge problem facing the entire world. Millions of people still die every year from preventable and curable viruses, parasites and infections. HIV/AIDS continues to spread, hitting rich and poor alike. As people and goods travel swiftly around the globe, diseases have the ability to travel also. Finally, new diseases threaten to attack people in all countries.

Although diseases like malaria and tuberculosis have been almost completely eliminated in the developed world, they continue to kill millions in the developing world. Simple solutions are available, like bed nets to stop malaria mosquitoes from biting, yet there is not an effective effort to get the nets to all who need them. Vaccines can prevent childhood diseases like the measles yet many children still cannot get them. We must ask why the governments of the world do not work harder to take these simple steps.

Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Halting the Spread of Global Disease.

"In my own country, South Africa, we have been burying 600 people a day, something like two jumbo jets crashing. Put the face of someone you know, someone you love, on those statistics.”

The pandemic of HIV/AIDS continues to spread everywhere. The spread of this incurable disease is tragic and has far-reaching and long-lasting effects.. More than 25 million people have died from AIDS since 1981. In 2007, it is estimated that there were 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS, 2 million people died from AIDS and that 2.7 million people were newly infected with HIV. The people who actually have HIV/AIDS are not the only people who are affected by it. In Africa, there are more than 11.6 million children who are orphans because of AIDS.

The global community does not only face diseases it already knows. New diseases also crop up, and with the rapid movement of people and goods around the world, they spread very quickly as well. Severe acute respiratory system, also known as SARS, is an example of a new disease that spread around the world in a matter of just a few months. In addition, known diseases, like tuberculosis can mutate into new, stronger varieties.

Disease has economic and social effects that are almost impossible to calculate. Treatment and care for those who are ill places huge burdens on families and communities. It prevents the healthy from working and dooms whole areas to poverty.

The prevention and treatment of these diseases should be among the highest priorities of the governments of the world yet foreign aid to the governments of developing countries is limited. It is clear that the whole world needs to focus on fighting this problem.