The 2030 Spike

CHAPTER 17

HEALTH AND WEALTH

Globally, the war against disease is going badly. This is regrettable enough in itself, but it becomes all the more serious because increasing human incapacity, if unchecked, will accelerate the 2030 drivers. Chronic illness or disability affects as many as two in three people, premature death takes millions more. Some African countries are virtually crippled, as AIDS destroys as much as 40 per cent of the workforce. Major killing diseases, recently considered under control, are again exacting a toll in the millions. The worst effects are being felt in the developing world.

And most of those millions of deaths, more than half of them of small children, are preventable – quite easily and cheaply. Western nations justifiably ...