Today is World Health Day! World Health Day is celebrated on April 7th every year because April 7th, 1948 was when the World Health Organization began. Every year, Word Health Day is celebrated with a different theme, and each theme finds ways for people to have better health in that area. The topic for today is vector-borne diseases. So what are vectors and vector-borne diseases?
Vector-borne diseases are illnesses caused by organisms that carry pathogens and parasites from one infected person (or animal) to another. They are usually found in tropical areas and places where people do not have safe drinking water and sanitation systems. Malaria is the most deadly vector-borne disease; there were about 660 000 deaths in Africa from malaria in 2010. As trade and travel have become international and global, these vector-born disease have come into countries where they had been completely unknown before.
