WHO ( world health organization) releases the top ten diseases in Africa and its surprising to me how Ebola is not among even with its Rumbling Rumble party that it has dance to.
Ebola is a disease I respect so much because of its fast and effective way it can take your enemies away from you... Well there is no figure that will transfigure you to believe that all that time Ebola was just doing shanga.. its just no way close to the diseases below. Well be been a able to gather for you all the Top ten disease in Africa and how to cure it... The cures are under the cuffs of maybe as almost 80% die while getting cures.. It still stands that PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE AND HYGIENE WAY, THE THRUTH AND THE LIGHT TO GOOD HEALTH.. PUT YOUR TRUST IN GOD IT REALLY HELPS.
So below are the Top Ten disease In Africa enjoy as u read:
1. Lower respiratory infections
Death toll: More than 4 million people each year.
What are they? Mostly pneumonia and other
diseases of the lungs, windpipe or bronchial tubes,
including Legionnaire’s disease.
How are they spread? Coughing, sneezing, laughing
or exhaling.
Facts:
Most victims are under five.
Tuberculosis and whooping cough are also lower
respiratory infections, but death tolls are tallied
separately by the U.N. World Health Organisation
(WHO).
Often associated with AIDS.
Treatment and prevention: Virus usually runs its
course after seven to 10 days, but sometimes
antibiotics are needed.
Target: Goal number four of the U.N.-sponsored
Millennium Development Goals aimed at cutting
global poverty calls for a reduction in child mortality
by two-thirds by 2015.
“If you look at the resources going into child health
compared to the resources going into other areas,
really it is very, very small and we need to increase
the resources going in both from within national
budgets and from external donors.”
Elizabeth Mason, director of Child and Adolescent
Health, WHO

2. HIV/AIDS
Death toll: More than 3 million deaths attributed to
AIDS in 2004.
Infection rate: Some 39.4 million people in the world
live with HIV.
What is it? HIV stands for “human immunodeficiency
virus”. It erodes the immune system. Infection with
HIV has been established as the underlying cause of
AIDS, which stands for acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome. Most people with HIV develop signs of
AIDS within eight to 15 years unless they receive
treatment. AIDS-related deaths are often caused by
pneumonia or tuberculosis.
How is it spread? Unprotected sex, blood
transfusions or contaminated needles, or from
mother to child during pregnancy, birth and
breastfeeding.
Facts:
65 percent of HIV cases are in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Teenage girls are at high risk in sub-Saharan
Africa, where three-quarters of 15-24-year-olds
living with HIV are female.
Treatment and prevention: There is no vaccine for
HIV, but HIV-positive people can live on life-
prolonging antiretroviral drugs for decades.
Target: The “3 by 5″ initiative by WHO and UNAIDS
aims to provide antiretroviral treatment to 3 million
HIV-positive people by the end of 2005. As many as
6 million people need treatment. By the end of 2004,
some 720,000 were receiving therapy, prompting
UNAIDS to say it was on track to meet its goal.
“It will be difficult to reach 3 million people with
these drugs but what this campaign for “3 by 5″ has
done is (ensure) treatment for HIV is now on the
agenda in every developing country.” Dr Peter Piot,
UNAIDS executive director

3. Malaria
Death toll: Between 1 million and 5 million each
year.
Infection rate: WHO puts the number of people
affected annually at 300 million, but the Kenyan
Medical Research Institute says there are actually
515 million cases a year of the deadliest form of
malaria alone.
How is it spread? Mosquitoes.
Facts:
Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.
Malaria is transmitted to humans by the female
anopheles mosquito.
Ninety per cent of deaths are in Africa, home to
the most deadly form of the virus.
Malaria is responsible for 20 percent of Africa’s
under-five mortality and 10 percent of the
continent’s overall disease burden.
Less than five percent of people at greatest
malaria risk have insecticide-treated mosquito nets
to sleep under. Treatment and prevention:
Insecticide-treated mosquito nets and indoor
insecticide spraying. There are a variety of anti-
malarial drugs, but the malaria parasite has
developed immunity to many of them. For short-
term prevention, travellers take daily or weekly pills.
Target: Millennium Development Goal number six
includes a call for the international community to
halt and begin to reverse the incidence of killer
diseases, including malaria.

4. Diarrhoea
Death toll: Kills around 2.2 million people each year.
Infection rate: 4 billion cases a year.
What is it? Diarrhoea – caused by dysentery,
cholera and a host of lesser-known scourges – is a
symptom of infection from bacterial, viral and
parasitic organisms like microscopic worms. Most
diarrhoea-related deaths, particularly in children, are
due to dehydration.
How is it spread? Contaminated water and food.
Facts:
In Southeast Asia, diarrhoea is responsible for up
to 8.5 percent of all deaths, and in Africa for 7.7
percent of deaths.
Treatment: Diarrhoea can be treated with oral re-
hydration salts. Zinc is also now advocated as an
accompanying treatment.
Target: Goal number 10 of the Millennium
Development Goals is to halve the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation by 2015.

5. Tuberculosis
Death toll: Two million people die every year.
Infection rate: About 2 billion people are infected
with TB and over 8 million new cases develop each
year.
What is it? Symptoms of tuberculosis (TB) include a
chronic cough, fever, chills, weakness and weight
loss.
How is it spread? Coughing or sneezing.
Facts:
One-third of the world’s population is infected
with TB.
TB is a frequent killer for people with AIDS.
African states suffering from the HIV pandemic have
experienced an annual 10 percent rise in TB cases.
Has suffered a re-emergence in Eastern Europe,
largely due to patients failing to complete courses
of treatment. This has contributed to drug-resistant
strains evolving.
Treatment and prevention: The Bacille Calmette-
Guerin – BCG – vaccine is the most commonly used
preventative measure against TB in the developing
world, but drug-resistant strains are on the rise.
Directly Observed Therapy Short-course – DOTS – is
the internationally recommended approach to TB
control. Under DOTS, health workers closely monitor
treatment to ensure that patients complete the full
course of medication, thereby helping to prevent
new strains of drug-resistant TB developing. The
method has cure rates of up to 95 percent, even in
the poorest countries.
Targets: The Global Plan to Stop TB ran from 2001
to 2005. The target was to detect 70 percent of
new TB infections, but the programme only achieved
45 percent case detection. However, 82 percent of
detected cases were treated, almost up to the 85
percent cure target. A new Global Plan will run to
2015 from 2006, aiming for Millennium Development
Goal number six, which is to halt and begin
reversing the spread of major diseases like TB. “The
DOTS strategy is one of the most cost-effective of
all health interventions.”
The World Bank

6. Measles
Death toll: An estimated 530,000 measles deaths
annually, mostly children.
Infection rate: More than 30 million people are
infected with the virus each year.
What is it? Measles can cause blindness, brain
damage and make children susceptible to
pneumonia and diarrhoea. Potentially fatal if left
untreated.
How is it spread? Coughing and sneezing. It is
highly contagious.
Facts:
1,400 people die from measles every day.
It costs $1 to immunise a child.
Africa and Southeast Asia account for 82 percent
of the global death toll.
Treatment and prevention: Vaccination is effective.
The disease can be treated with drugs, but strains
of drug-resistant measles have developed.
Targets: The Measles Initiative and the WHO/U.N.
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Strategy for Sustainable
Measles Mortality Reduction aim to reduce measles
deaths with comprehensive vaccination
programmes. Global measles deaths have fallen by
39 per cent since 1999, while Africa has witnessed a
drop of 47 percent.
“We can take a country that is endemic for a leading
cause of child death and, almost at will, take it to
zero percent and keep it there. Now we are just
trying to get the resources and the political
cooperation to do it everywhere.”
Dr Mark Grabowsky, Technical Advisor, Measles
Initiative & American Red Cross

7. Whooping cough, or pertussis
Death toll: 200,000 to 300,000 die each year.
Infection rate: 20 million to 40 million cases
annually.
What is it? Highly contagious acute bacterial
disease of the respiratory tract.
How is it spread? Coughing, sneezing or talking.
Facts:
90 percent of pertussis cases occur in developing
countries. Most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Global Alliance for Vaccines & Immunisation
(GAVI) immunised 294,000 children against
whooping cough last year.
Treatment and prevention: Can be treated with
antibiotics, but vaccines are the most effective way
to control it.
Targets: GAVI aims to introduce pertussis vaccine
into routine childhood vaccination programmes all
over the world.

8. Tetanus
Death toll: 214,000 deaths a year.
Infection rate: 500,000 cases a year.
What is it? Also known as lockjaw, tetanus is a
potentially fatal disease of the central nervous
system.
How is it spread? Caused by a wound becoming
infected with bacteria. Clostridium tetani spores live
in soil, so are present everywhere.
Facts:
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia bear the
brunt of tetanus deaths, with 84,000 and 82,000
respectively.
Neo-natal tetanus – passed from mother to child
– is a leading cause of infant mortality in some
regions.
One in 10 Haitians projected to have HIV/AIDS by
2015.
Since WHO called for global elimination of the
disease in 1989, neo-natal tetanus deaths have
decreased to 180,000 worldwide in 2002 from
800,000 in the 1980s.
Treatment: Can be prevented with a vaccine

9. Meningitis
Death toll: 174,000 deaths a year.
Infection rate: Over a million people contract a form
of meningitis every year.
What is it? A frequently fatal infection of the tissues
that cover the brain and spinal cord. Even with early
diagnosis and correct treatment, five to 10 percent
of patients die.
How is it spread? Droplets from the throat or
breath. Close contact or sharing eating and drinking
utensils can spread the disease.
Facts:
The “Meningitis Belt” with the world’s highest
incidence rates stretches from Senegal in western
Africa to Ethiopia in the east.
10 to 20 percent of survivors suffer brain
damage, hearing loss, or learning disability.
Treatment and prevention: Vaccines are available.
Antibiotics for treatment include penicillin and
ceftriaxone. Oily chloramphenicol is the drug of
choice in areas with limited health facilities because
a single dose is effective.
Target: The International Coordinating Group on
Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control
supports research to develop a new vaccine.

10. Syphilis
Death toll: 157,000 deaths a year.
Infection rate: Around 12.2 million cases worldwide.
How is it spread? Syphilis is primarily spread by
sexual contact, though it can be transmitted
internally from an infected mother directly to her
baby.
Facts:
Many common antibiotics do not work against
syphilis.
Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin
America — in that order — experience the highest
rates of syphilis.
Treatment: Penicillin.
PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE