The Situation in Developing Countries
High mortality rates, especially amongst very young children and their mothers in childbirth, low life expectancy and preventable diseases caused by infections and parasites are characteristic features of the state of public health in developing countries.
The causes of many of the diseases caused by poverty have less to do with the particular risk of infection in hot climates, and much more to do with poor hygiene standards and living conditions, inadequate nutrition, health service systems which barely function, and low levels of formal education. The AIDS epidemic is spreading through poor countries with terrifying speed, causing untold devastation.
Health services across the world are attempting to cope with these enormous problems, even though they are often poorly equipped for the purpose and, in rural areas, may still only be under construction. Suitably qualified professionals are still scarce outside the large cities. Low levels of pay, bad levels of professional motivation and supervision as well as unusually hard working conditions can all reduce the difficulty levels for people to carrying out aid work outside the larger cities.
Most children in developing countries die of diseases for which there are cost-effective immunisations, or which are easily treatable. The ProtectStar Foundation aims to try to protect children from the six most dangerous infectious diseases: polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, tetanus and tuberculosis.
The ProtectStar Foundation plans to buy vaccines and to pack them into cool boxes ready for transport. Specially-selected medical workers will then be able to reach the children who need them, even in the remotest villages.
Additionally, the ProtectStar Foundation supports the development of comprehensive and universally-available basic health services in all countries. Our goal is to train health workers and midwives and to set up medical stations with essential medication. Providing artemisinin-based combination preparations (ACT) for protection against malaria is just the start. These preparations, however, are very expensive and beyond the reach of the poor local populations in the areas affected by malaria.