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- Humanity's health is improving rapidly; life expectancy at birth increased globally from 46 years in 1950 to 71.5 years in 2015, with the 5 years increase between 2000 and 2015 being the fastest since the 1960s. Life expectancy gap between rich and poor countries continues to be significant. | Related Megatrends: Inequalities; Demography; Technology
- Epidemiologic transition: the leading causes of disease and death are shifting from infectious and acute diseases to chronic and degenerative diseases.
| Related Megatrends: Demography; Inequalities; Consumerism - Some tropical diseases will disappear completely.
| Related Megatrends: Inequalities; Technology - Maternal deaths will continue to decrease due to improved health care and hygiene, increasing women education and awareness, reducing fertility rates, and better nutrition.
| Related Megatrends: Technology; Demography - World Health Organization - WHO reports that 86% of countries reviewed have set national hepatitis elimination targets and more than 70% have begun to develop national hepatitis plans to enable access to effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care services. Furthermore, nearly half of the countries surveyed are aiming for elimination through providing universal access to hepatitis treatment.
| Related Megatrends: Inequalities; Technology - Overuse of antibiotics is increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Unless changes to use of antibiotics (by humans and in agriculture) and finding of new class of antibiotics, the global annual death toll due to AMR could grow from today's estimated 700,000 peaople (one person a minute) to 10 million a year by 2050. (In Europe, infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria have caused some 33,000 deaths in 2015.)
- Since 2000, only five new classes of antibiotics have been put on the market; none of them targets the deadliest bacteria. Note: up to 70% of antibiotics are given to animals, often for no other reason than to make them grow more quickly.)
| Related Megatrends: Consumerism; Inequalities; Technology - As of 2022, in the EU it will be prohibited to use antimicrobials for animals prevetivly or for growth promotion, and certain antimicrobilas might be reserved for human use only. This will also apply to non-EU countries that expoert to the EU.
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