Over fifty years of civil war in Burma has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. They have fled their homes, hidden for safety and faced forced relocation. Those people who are living along the border and in the interior of the ethnic nationalities’ area of Burma are severely affected.
The 2000 World Health Report ranked Burma’s overall health system performance as the second worst in the world. Many preventable diseases are rampant in the general population of Burma. Thirty six percent of children younger than 5 are estimated to be malnourished. Babies and children die from vaccine preventable diseases such as tuberculosis, tetanus and measles. Due to military restrictions in border areas, lack of electricity, difficulties with transportation and insufficiently trained health staff, what might be considered a simple illness in the West is life-threatening in Burma.
