Opinion | Amid Suffering in 2023, Humans Still Made Progress - The New York Times - 0 views
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In some ways, 2023 may still have been the best year in the history of humanity.
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Just about the worst calamity that can befall a human is to lose a child, and historically, almost half of children worldwide died before they reached the age of 15. That share has declined steadily since the 19th century, and the United Nations Population Division projects that in 2023 a record low was reached in global child mortality, with just 3.6 percent of newborns dying by the age of 5.
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It still means that about 4.9 million children died this year — but that’s a million fewer than died as recently as 2016.
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consider extreme poverty. It too has reached a record low, affecting a bit more than 8 percent of humans worldwide,
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All these figures are rough, but it seems that about 100,000 people are now emerging from extreme poverty each day — so they are better able to access clean water, to feed and educate their children, to buy medicines.
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If we want to tackle problems — from the war in Gaza to climate change — then it helps to know that progress is possible.
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Two horrifying diseases are close to eradication: polio and Guinea worm disease. Only 12 cases of wild poliovirus have been reported worldwide in 2023 (there were also small numbers of vaccine-derived polio, a secondary problem), and 2024 may be the last year in which wild polio is transmitted
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Meanwhile, only 11 cases of Guinea worm disease were reported in humans in the first nine months of 2023.
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the United States government recently approved new CRISPR gene-editing techniques to treat sickle cell disease — and the hope is that similar approaches can transform the treatment of cancer and other ailments
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Blinding trachoma is also on its way out in several countries. A woman suffering from trachoma in Mali once told me that the worst part of the disease wasn’t the blindness but rather the excruciating pain, which she said was as bad as childbirth but lasted for years. So I’m thrilled that Mali and 16 other countries have eliminated trachoma.