shouldn’t we have extended the life expectancy to at least 90-100 years with all the advancements we have in medicine now?
In: Biology
Average lifespan in the top countries is 80 years or more.
The majority of countries can’t afford all of that high tech stuff. Not the expensive medications, not the high tech medical devices like high resolution MRIs etc.
Lets say you live in Nigeria (worlds 6th most populous country). With the median wage, if you get any sort of more difficult to treat cancer or heart condition or kidney problems… you’re fucked. The health care is available, but not at your price point and there is no universal healthcare.
Same in Pakistan (5th most populous) where their universal healthcare program covers medical fees up to 3500 USD. 3500 USD is a shitload for a Pakistani family, but it doesn’t cover any of the advanced life-extending healthcare we’ve gotten used to in the western world.
So people get older, but mostly due to the basic stuff like vaccines and penicillin etc and that kind of technology is mostly old hat by now (we had a pretty good idea of how most of that worked back in 1960). The biggest advancement on healthcare for poor countries is that anti-parasitics have gotten WAY better in the last 40 years, but that has mostly stopped people from dying in their 30s and not so much for people in their 70s.
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