PHE3GHI: SDG-3 Progress Status and Global Health Initiatives Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG-3), which focuses on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all. The report examines the global initiatives and current status of SDG-3, assessing the likelihood of meeting the 2030 targets. It explores two key thematic areas: infectious disease control and environmental risk management. The report highlights the challenges in controlling infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, as well as the impact of environmental factors on health. It also discusses the role of financial support, government policies, and international collaborations in achieving SDG-3 goals. The essay assesses the progress made, identifies obstacles, and suggests strategies to improve global health outcomes.

Running Head: Public Health
Progress Status of Sustainable Development Goal-3
Report
System04104
8/20/2019

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Introduction
In 2015 general assembly of United Nations, the global members of UN set a
collection of sustainable development goals for the year 2030. The main aims of these goals
are to achieve sustainable global development by 2030 (United Nations, 2018). There were
17 goals in the agenda of UN including no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being,
quality education etc. Good health and well-being is the third major goal of UN because
health and sustainable development are closely interlinked with each other (Eckermann,
2018). Health people are the basic and primary requirement of a happy, healthy, growing,
prosperous, and secure society. This report helps to understand the global initiatives and
present status of SDG-3 to achieve the sustainable growth target by 2030. This report helps to
understand about the present status of the whole world to prevent disease and progress of
SDG-3 and likelihood of this goal being met by 2030. The report also covers two thematic
areas of assessment such as infectious disease and environmental risk.
What is SDG of United Nations?
SDG stands of Sustainable Development Goals. SDG consist 17 sustainable goals that
are required for sustainable development of the people and countries (both developing and
under-developed countries).These 17 goals almost interdependent on each other and it is
really important to achieve growth and development. These 17 goals include 169 targets and
each target has 1 and 3 indicators that helps to measure the progress of these goals to
reaching the targets (Colglazier, 2015). These 17 goals are shown in the below figure:

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(Source: United Nations, 2018)
SDG-3
The third goals of SDG is ‘Good health and well-being’ for all people by 2030. This
goal is almost soul of development because a developed and prosperous society is only
possible if the people are healthy and happy in the society. The major target for this goal is to
reduce the child mortality and maternal mortality first (Ordunez & Campbell, 2016). This is
the common killers associated with the society that helps the public health and well-being.
Apart from this, this goal aims to provide all the health facilities for people and ensure that
people will get clean water and sanitation. The aim of this goal is to reduce the infectious
disease from the society such as malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, etc. (United
Nations, 2018). This goal aims that every country will focus on to provide better healthcare
facilities to the people and educate them about the importance of sanitation and clean water
(Norheim, Jha, Admasu, Godal, Hum, Kruk, & Suraweera, 2015). Apart from this, one of the
key goals of this SDG is to reduce the adolescent pregnancy and provide skilled birth
attendants to the pregnant women so child mortality and maternal mortality can easily be
reduced in future (Norheim, Jha, Admasu, Godal, Hum, Kruk, & Suraweera, 2015).

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Progress Update of SDG-3 and its Likelihood to achieve the goal by
2030
The major emphasis of the SDG-3 is on improving the health of millions of people,
fighting against leading infectious disease like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, increasing life
expectancy of people, and reducing the child and maternal mortality rate. However, it has
been seen that most of the countries are failed to gain control over infectious disease like
tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. The lack of financial support and inefficiency of
governments to provide proper medical facilities and healthcare services to the people is also
a key obstacle in the progress of SDG-3. The inappropriate action of governments and
problem in healthcare system is also a problem for the SD-3 that stops the world to achieve
the goals SDG-3 by 2030 (United Nations, 2018).
Infectious Disease Control
The WHO and Unicef provide huge funds for the countries to control the infectious
disease like HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. However, the heavy findings and huge financial
and healthcare support from these global healthcare organisations is still looking effective as
the cases of these types of infectious diseases are decreasing every day. The governments of
various countries are spending lots of money on testing of HIV/AIDS, its treatment, and
spreading awareness through various awareness and education programs (Campbell, 2017).
However, there are some crucial progress has been monitored in the Sub-Sahara Africa where
the mortality from HIV and tuberculosis is too high (United Nations, 2018). In 2010, the
every 3.39 infections per 1000 have been registered in Sub-Saharan Africa (between 15-49
age people). However, this rate was reduced in 2017 and it declined to 2.14 per 1000 people.
It means there was a decline of 37% in HIV/AIDS diseases. However, the overall case of
HIV infections worldwide was declined from 0.44 to 0.40 out of 1000 people during 2015 to
2017 (among adults between 15-49 years). The overall declined in HIV cases globally was
22% from 2010 to 2017 (United Nations, 2018).
The cases of tuberculosis infection were also reduced in the same duration.
Tuberculosis is one of the dangerous diseases that are responsible for death of large numbers.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that can be spread one person to another person.
According to a report of W.H.O, more than 10 million people were suffering from
tuberculosis in 2017 (Seidman, 2017). There were more than 170 new cases and relapse cases
of tuberculosis was detected in 2010 out of 100,000 people while it was declined to 140 in
2015 and 134 in 2017 (Edouard & Bernstein, 2016). However, the case of tuberculosis in

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HIV negative people was declined by 42% between 2010 to 2017.The decline rate of
tuberculosis is too low and it is expected that with this slow rate it is really difficult to
achieve the sustainable goal 3 by 2013. Another reason behind this is poor healthcare
management of government in developing and underdeveloped countries (Hall, Ross,
Richards, Barrington, Dean, Head, & Hill, 2018). The government cannot afford the
medicines or fail to provide the medicine to the tuberculosis patient and this is the major
reason that affects the progress of SDG-3 worldwide. However, it can be said that drug-
resistant cases of tuberculosis is still a serious case for the sustainable development goals.
The current pace of progress to eliminate tuberculosis from the society and from the world is
still a challenge for domestic countries and WHO and it is major obstacle in the SDG goal
achievement (Evans & Kieny, 2017).
Malaria, which was one of the dangerous diseases in few decades ago, it has now
controlled by the government. A steady progress has been registered by the WHO and UN to
control the malaria. There were no significant increase was detected of malaria in the period
of 2015-17. The most of the cases (almost 90% malaria cases of the world) were found in
sub-Saharan African countries but there is significant decrease in malaria cases. Another
infectious disease, which is more dangerous than AIDS and Tuberculosis, is hepatitis B virus.
Hepatitis B is an infectious disease and it is a challenge for the whole world (Ogu, Agholor,
& Okonofua, 2016). However, the vaccines of hepatitis B in infants and children reduced the
cases of this dangerous infectious disease. In pre-vaccines era every 4.7 children out of
100,000 children (under the age of 5 year) were suffering from hepatitis B virus while after
vaccination in children it is reduced to 0.8% in 2017 (United Nations, 2018).
Many developing and under developing countries in the world are relying on the
financial support from the international organisations like WHO and World Bank to reach
their health related SDGs. Most of the countries are facing issues get the resources and
healthcare facilities and this financial inability or lack of resources directly affect the target of
SDG (Mirza, 2016). The developing countries and low-income countries or under developed
countries are facing strong challenges to achieve these targets of SDG goals. Poverty, which
is the second major SDG of UN, is also an obstacle and affects the progress of SDG-3
because poverty and lack of education is the major reason that can cause much infectious
disease in the people. The major health issues are detected in sub-Saharan African countries.
Transforming health system in the LMICs required additional support of US$371 billion per

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year by 2030 to achieve the SDG-3 goal’s targets (United Nations, 2018). There are 67 low
and middle-income countries that make the 95% of total population of LMIC. However, the
middle-income countries have capabilities to invest in such type of health care services and
facilities to protect the people from the infectious diseases, but low-income countries are still
not capable in facing these global health issues (United Nations, 2018). This directly affects
the progress of SDG-3 goal United Nations. However, the developing countries of middle-
income countries should try to increase their domestic healthcare investment to achieve the
SDG-3 because domestic investment is the central means of achieving goal 3 of UN (Rood,
Khan, Modak, Mergenthaler, Van Gurp, Blok, & Bakker, 2019).
Environmental Risk Control
There is a direct impact of environmental factors on the human health. People faces
too many issues related to pollution and because it directly affect the lives of people on the
earth. Air pollution control and water pollution control is necessary to provide better life to
the people. SDGG 3 cannot be accomplished if people do not care to protect the natural
resource like forest and rivers (Mirza, 2016). Pollution causes many non-communicable
disease like cancer, Asthma, cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease etc. In 2016, more
than 7 million people died from these diseases in all over the world (United Nations, 2018).
Most of the people died from these diseases in Asian countries, Sub-Saharan African
countries, and Oceania (excluding Australia/New Zealand). These countries have higher
mortality rate and one of the major reason is that most of the countries in these continents are
developing countries (Asi & Williams, 2018). In the blindness of achieving high economic
growth rate and fast development, these countries ignore the importance of natural resources
and environment. For example, China and India which are major populated countries in the
Asian continent and they are doing more pollution than other countries for fast economic
growth and development. This leads to many other health related issues in the people of these
two countries. Apart from this, the unhygienic water and water pollution are two important
issues that are ignored by these countries. Sanitation and unsafe drinking water are the major
causes behind these diseases (Tomita & Watabe, 2017).
The contribution and approach of countries is so crucial in reduction of pollution. The
approach of developing countries like China is so critical in the achievement of SDG-3
because China never cares for the natural resources or environmental pollution because of
their high economic growth and production need. The success and progress of SDG goals are

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totally depends on the existing resource allocation and approach of middle-income countries.
However, the lower income countries need support from the developed countries to achieve
their healthcare and well-being target of SDG. Apart from this, a public-private partnership
can also help the middle income and lower-income countries to ensure better health and
security of people in the country. The government of developing and under-developed
countries need to formulate strong legal policies and framework and a mandatory regulatory
environment to achieve the SDG-3. The increasing pollution rate of Asian and African
countries is the major concern for global health and well-being and it can be said that
increasing pollution and other environmental issues are some of the serious concerns in the
progress and achievement of SDG-3 targets and objectives (Vladimirova & Le Blanc, 2016).
The government of all the countries and international bodies should work together to achieve
the target of SDG-3 and this is the only way that set the overall sustainable development of
the world by 2030.
Conclusion
In conclusion, despite significant progress in the healthcare disease especially in
HIV/AIDS control, prevention of malaria, and hepatitis B prevention. Although the child
mortality rate and maternal death during pregnancy in the low-income countries still affect
the progress of SDG-3. There are much work require to be done on good health and well-
being in both middle-income countries and lower middle-income countries. Sub-Saharan
Africa is still facing strong issues related to HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B virus. The low-income
countries need support from the international financial organisations and from the developed
countries to control over infectious disease. Apart from this, public private partnership in
these countries can also help to ensure efficient progress in health and well-being. There is
strong relation between environmental conditions and human health but it has been found that
most of the governments are not seriously taken the environmental concern seriously and
could not be able to improve the conditions that affect the health and well-being of people.

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