Thabo Mbeki Quotes

Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.

As medical research continues and technology enables new breakthroughs, there will be a day when malaria and most all major deadly diseases are eradicated on Earth.

The health of the people is of supreme importance. All measures looking to their protection against the spread of contagious diseases and to the increase of our sanitary knowledge for such purposes deserve attention of Congress.

Contagious and infectious diseases have been largely overcome.

Unequal development in different countries in the promotion of health and control of disease, especially communicable disease, is a common danger.

Disease is largely a removable evil. It continues to afflict humanity, not only because of incomplete knowledge of its causes and lack of individual and public hygiene, but also because it is extensively fostered by harsh economic and industrial conditions and by wretched housing in congested communities.

… it seems to me that there is little knowledge of the ordinary rules of sanitation in many of the rural districts of the South in which we have been. The same holds true of some of the poorer districts in the cities. We all know that you can become immune to almost any type of infection, but some people die in the process unnecessarily.

That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.

Science is beginning to catch up with global health problems.

Infectious diseases have become less prominent as causes of death and disability in regions of improved sanitation and adequate supplies of antibiotics.

In Jamaica, we eradicated polio many years ago, but there are a lot of kids suffering in Africa still.

We have common enemies today. It's called childhood poverty. It's called cancer. It's called AIDS. It's called Parkinson's. It's called Muscular Dystrophy.

We've taken on the major health problems of the poorest - tuberculosis, maternal mortality, AIDS, malaria - in four countries. We've scored some victories in the sense that we've cured or treated thousands and changed the discourse about what is possible.

Africa needs more funding to continue to fight all of those diseases. We are losing more than 1.3 million young children under the age of five every year because of malaria. We've already lost 25 million people to the pandemic of HIV-AIDS. More people are dying now from typhoid fever. Diabetes is on the rise.

So much of what we are currently seeing as far as human suffering and misery comes from diseases that should have been preventable but were not.

Disease among the working classes is caused by atmospheric impurities produced by decomposing animal and vegetable substances, by damp and filth, and close and overcrowded dwellings.

Infectious diseases ... have probably been the most dangerous of enemies of mankind, much more so than war and mass murder. When one studies the constant epidemics of the past and the deficiency diseases on land and at sea, one realizes that the whole of civilization could have succumbed, and one is constantly surprised that mankind has survived.

Unfortunately, infectious diseases don’t pay much attention to budget cycles.

The campaign of sanitation in our colonies has wiped out many epidemic diseases and reduced to a minimum the hotbeds of infection. Our colonies can boast of sanitary and hygienic measures similar to those existing in the most progressive countries.

We can't predict when infectios diseases will break out, but their breakout is inevitable. That is why we must be prepared.

The world is rich enought today that the idea of millions of children dying of disease is unacceptable. We have the resouurces and know how to prevent this.

In low-income countries, the main problems you have is infectious diseases.

In terms of medicine, I've generally been pretty interested in public health issues as they relate to sub-Saharan Africa on a broad scale - HIV/AIDS, malaria etc.

We shall immunize every child in Africa to get rid of this terrible disease forever.

I think children should be vaccinated because that affects the health of all the other children.