ARCHBISHOP LOZANO AT THE WORLD ASSEMBLY ON HEALTH

VATICAN CITY, MAY 18, 2002 (VIS) - Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, led the delegation of the Holy See on Wednesday May 15 in the 55th World Assembly on Health which took place in Geneva, Switzerland from May 13 to 18.

Archbishop Lozano recalled "many of the great risks that health runs today: Actually, 17 million people have died from infectious diseases and nutritional deficiency; 2.7 million from AIDS, 2.2 million from diarrhea, 1.7 million from tuberculosis and 1 million from malaria. To that are added deaths from tobacco and alcoholism, from cancer, as well as other degenerative diseases, from poor life habits, lack of hygiene, drugs, traffic and work accidents, from the abuse of medication or lack thereof due to high prices, and mental illnesses, as there is an increase today in depression."

"It is worth noting," he continued, "as a patent risk to health, the neo-Malthusian mentality against life, given that health and life are identified with each other, current projects of reproductive health, especially propositions for the third world, and in particular the misconception as to what is quality of life, which has brought the legalization of euthanasia to some places. Nor can we forget environmental pollution, hunger, armed conflicts, natural catastrophes."

The leader of the Holy See delegation also referred to the existing risk today of "a 'microbial' unification of the world, where infectious diseases, given the growing mobility of populations, are present everywhere, as much for the rich as for the poor; viruses and bacteria do not have borders."

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