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SAY NO TO POOR HEALTH

By Ryan BiscochoYancy SunWah Tsui

Bethan PembridgeMichael Bear

Kathryn Davies

Bill and Melinda Gates have started a new foundation to

help prevent and find cures for diseases and poor health.

Food

Many people in Africa and other Third World Country are malnourished and do not have suitable food to satisfy their body’s needs. Without the adequate amount of vitamins, minerals, proteins and other nutritional values, the body’s immune system will grow weary and it will be less protected from disease and illnesses.

This is why we need to find ways to help these suffering people. One of the ways to help the people, is by genetically modifying cassava plant to produce more nutritional values, but still grow in poor quality soils.

These genetically modified cassava plants will have more protein, vitamins and minerals to help build up their immune system.

The roots of the cassava plant will provide a staple food for 250 million Africans and other citizens of other Third World Countries.

HIVHIV is deadly. It can kill. Once you have it – you have it for life. There is no cure, but there are ways to prevent it. Getting HIV can cause the person to get AIDS, and can cause the immune system to fail, allowing life-threatening diseases to enter the body.

HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS

People can get HIV through the transfer of blood, semen and other bodily fluids. This can happen by using an infected needle or having sexual intercourse with an infected person.

A possible way to prevent HIV is by using a test-card. By putting a sample of blood on the card it can check if you have HIV and also TB in a few minutes. By using these, it eliminates the need of travelling a long way to a clinic, as it could be done in remote villages, if they have a supply of these test-cards.

TBTuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection which mainly affects the lungs, although they can spread to other parts of the body such as the bones and the nervous system. A person may be infected by TB by inhaling droplets of saliva from an infected person’s cough or sneeze. One infected person, may infect many others via their coughs or sneezes. This can be a very common problem as many poor people in Africa live in cramped living conditions, so this may affect a large number of people in one area.

One way to prevent TB is by devising a way of detecting TB infections before they become active and start affecting the body.

MALARIA AND DENGUEMalaria and dengue are tropical diseases which are spread via mosquitoes. Over a million children are killed every year by mosquito transmitted diseases. In rare cases dengue virus can develop into life – threatening dengue haemorrhagic fever.

Malaria can be spread by night – biting mosquitos, and it only takes a single bite to become infected. Any type of malaria can be dangerous, but some types are especially deadly and can cause death.We can prevent this by producing vaccines which can make people immune from diseases spread by mosquitos such as dengue and malaria. This will protect people from night – biting mosquitos which transmit malaria if they do not have any mosquito nets to protect them.

Dirty WaterIn many Third World Countries, they have unclean water, which can give disease such as Cholera when ingested.

We can prevent this by using powdered vaccines which dissolve in water and can be drunk. They can be taken with water which has been sterilised by boiling and then cooling.

They can be taken to remote areas where fridges and needles are not available, this way, people who live in remote places where clinics are not available can get vaccinated. This way we can vaccinate 27 million children.