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Health Check: Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

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05/11/2014

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

BBC World Service - Health Check, Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

Graphic images of diseases caused by smoking could be used on African cigarette packaging

Graphic warnings soon to adorn cigarette packets in Africa; Why cases of Kala Azar are on the increase in Kala Azar; Progress on global access to modern contraception for women.

Graphic photographs of some of the diseases caused by smoking have just been made available for governments to put on cigarette packets. Shocking pictures of everything from gangrene to mouth cancer. In Africa smoking rates are still much lower than in parts of the world such as China or Indonesia, but organisations such as the World Lung Foundation are keen to prevent an epidemic taking hold there as countries develop and prosper. Rebecca Perl, director of Communications and Special Projects, explains why special images were developed for Africa. 

Kala Azar in South Sudan
Kala Azar - or to give it its medical name, Visceral Leishmaniasis - is a hidden killer. The disease is caused by the bite of certain types of sandfly. Symptoms include fever, weight loss, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anaemia and immune-system deficiencies and without treatment it is usually fatal. South Sudan is one of the worst affected countries in the world. And, after civil war broke out in December last year, the situation is getting much worse. The BBC’s James Copnall went to the town of Malakal to find out more.

Global access to contraception
Around the world there are 200 million women who do not have access to contraception. Universal access to reproductive health was one of the millennium development goals and although that goal will not be met by 2015, there is some good news. Since 2012 an organisation called Family Planning 2020 has been trying to engage governments in the poorest 69 countries to make commitments to give more women the opportunity to use family planning. Thirty countries have already signed up and Family Planning 2020 report that an extra 8.4 million women now have access to modern contraception.  Beth Schlacter, the Director of FP2020, and Kathy Calvin, President and C.E.O. of the United Nations Foundation, tell Health Check about the challenges that still lie ahead.


Photo credit: World Lung Foundation

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