ABSTRACT
As with famines and hunger, major epidemics and pandemics of diseases represent only dramatic periodic escalations of an underlying and persistent threat. The World Health Organization (WHO) optimistically declared in 1977 that victory against disease was in sight in setting the target of ‘Health for All by the Year 2000’. By the end of the century, however, the WHO’s hope that it could shift its main focus to Primary Health Care had been overtaken by events with the revival of apparently dormant illnesses and the arrival of new, even more virulent diseases. Political upheaval in sub-Saharan African states such as Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo has contributed to poverty and the limited development of public health and sanitation provision. Even in states less anarchic and less naturally prone to disease epidemics than sub-Saharan Africa, health threats to security have emerged in line with political upheaval.
