The central African nation of Angola recently saw a significant uptick in life expectancy, largely due to health and sanitation advances. However, several communicable maladies still affect the population today. What’s more, it may come as a surprise that many common diseases in Angola are preventable.

Beginning with the general health numbers, the life expectancy in Angola hovers around 56 years. This ranks it as number 208 among a list of 224 nations. Although on the rise, this ranking among the global community illustrates some major health issues present in the nation.

Poor quality of drinking water, a common source of fatal illnesses in countries with low life expectancies, is a main contributor to this nation’s life expectancy problem. The CIA World Factbook states that just under 50 percent of the drinking water has improved. This excludes a majority of the population, especially those living in rural areas.

This lack of clean water, along with a plethora of other factors, affects the children of Angola as well. Angola has an infant mortality rate of 7.6 percent, placing them at the eighth-highest in the world. Premature death, in general, is also high in this African nation.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, six out of the top 10 causes of death in Angola are communicable diseases (contractible diseases, which are therefore preventable). This is amplified in cases of premature death, where eight out of 10 are communicable, with congenital defects and road injuries as the outliers.

What is most surprising, however, is not how these illnesses are contracted, but the diseases themselves. This is the case for the third-highest of the common diseases in Angola which cause death: diarrheal illnesses.

“Diarrheal disease is highly preventable, yet accounts for nine percent of all deaths among children under age five worldwide,” reads a peer-reviewed research article by Liliana Carvajal-Vélez et al.

In this article, the researchers go on to explain how preventable these types of diseases are. They also reiterate a joint statement by the World Health Organization and UNICEF on how to better stave off diarrheal diseases. The statement highlights Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), zinc supplements and increased amounts of clean water and nutritional foods as keys to combating the illnesses. There is evidence to support that ORS alone can reduce diarrheal disease-related deaths by up to 93 percent.

However, this does not solve the entirety of the problem.

Another issue that instigates diarrheal diseases in countries such as Angola is the withholding of fluids from children affected by a diarrheal illness. An analysis in six African nations found an association between caregivers withholding vital fluid intake and seeking care outside of the home. This was particularly the case with people seeking “non-government health providers” (or non-professionals).

Studies suggest that training public physicians on how to treat children needing ORS and zinc while also instructing caregivers to give more sanitized fluids, not less, are effective in improving children’s health. By using methods like these, several of the common diseases in Angola could become much less common.

– Stephen Praytor

Photo: Google