Abstract
Nuclear weapons and neglected diseases: the "ten-thousand-to-one gap".
Highlights
Together, the world’s eight acknowledged nuclear powers—the United States (US), Russia, United Kingdom (UK), France, China, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—have amassed an arsenal of almost 30,000 nuclear weapons since 1945
The world’s nuclear states have up to one-third of the world’s cases of soil-transmitted helminth infections, more than one-half of the world’s new cases of leishmaniasis and leprosy, and approximately one-half of the global disease burden of trachoma, they have chosen to devote their major resources to weapons production instead of neglected disease control [33]
A distinction can be made between states that can afford more nuclear weapons (i.e., US, UK, France) and those for which social spending must be curtailed to pursue nuclear ambitions (i.e., India, Pakistan, China)
Summary
The world’s eight acknowledged nuclear powers—the United States (US), Russia, United Kingdom (UK), France, China, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—have amassed an arsenal of almost 30,000 nuclear weapons since 1945. Despite the technological sophistication that has enabled the 11 nuclear weapons states to produce and deliver nuclear bombs, most of these nations simultaneously suffer from high internal rates of poverty and endemic neglected diseases They include high prevalence rates of neglected tropical diseases in India, China, Pakistan, Iran, and Syria, and related neglected infections of poverty in the US and Europe. It is likely that the 11 nuclear weapons states together have invested at least $10 trillion on weapons production and maintenance Despite this massive expenditure, each of the 11 nuclear weapons states, with the possible exception of the U.K., suffers from high rates of neglected tropical diseases (and related neglected infections of poverty), defined as chronic and debilitating parasitic and other infectious diseases that occur in association with extreme poverty [4]. With the possible exceptions of the UK, high neglected disease burdens are present in all of the nuclear weapons states, the helminth infections, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, toxoplasmosis, and trachoma
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