• Question: What is the most common disease in the world?how do we cure it

    Asked by Laur3n to Sudhin, Sergio, Katie, Frances, Diarmuid, Aoife on 14 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Diarmuid Kenny

      Diarmuid Kenny answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      im guessing the common cold. These are caused by viruses so you would need a vaccine. These can be difficult to develop as viruses change all the time so you need to keep updating the vaccine which is a challenge

    • Photo: Frances Shiely

      Frances Shiely answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      The most common disease is probably Malaria. Sadly we have the cure but because it affects people in poor countries, they can’t access treatment.

    • Photo: Katie Fala

      Katie Fala answered on 21 Nov 2019:

      That’s an excellent question. I focus on infectious diseases, including bacterial infections and things like malaria and TB, but overall the most common cause of death globally is due to non-communicable diseases (NCD) – these include conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and respiratory diseases. You can look up more data on this here if you’re interested: http://www.ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death

      Setting aside deadly diseases, like Diarmuid said I wouldn’t be surprised if the common cold were the most prevalent infectious disease, as most people would get at least 2-3 a year!

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