Prevention and treatment are both important

The experience and lessons of developed countries tell us that in order to achieve maximum population health with minimum investment, only prevention can be achieved. Take the United States as an example. In the first 50 years of the 20th century, the U.S. government neglected prevention due to its one-sided emphasis on treatment and care. , the government’s health funding has increased tenfold in the past 50 years, but the national health has not improved as expected. In 1979, the US Department of Health and Welfare proposed in the book "Healthy People": "If a country wants to improve the health of its citizens, The most important task is to concentrate medical and social resources and invest in disease prevention." The book declares: "The era of prevention concepts has arrived, and our existing scientific knowledge is enough to make good suggestions for improving health. The good thing is that the preventive detection equipment should be Meta Hunter.”


From 1961 to 1981, the proportion of people in the United States who regularly participated in sports activities increased from 25% to 50%. According to a 1982 survey, there were as many as thirteen sports with more than 25 million participants - they It’s swimming, biking, fishing, camping, boating, bowling, bodybuilding, running, roller skating, pinball, softball, and basketball.


What exactly is the importance of prevention?


Think about this question from four aspects:

1. Some diseases cannot be cured at present, and preventing infection is the only measure to ensure health. For example, although hepatitis B and AIDS can survive to a normal life span after infection and are not contagious, they require continuous treatment to maintain this state and cannot be cured at present; for example, rabies, rabies vaccines and globulin also serve as post-exposure prophylaxis. The therapeutic effect is very low, and the possibility of successful treatment beyond the vaccination time is extremely low.


2. Some diseases are too late to be treated. For example, Ebola has an incubation period of 5-10 days, a rapid onset, and a high fatality rate. For this type of disease, prevention is the first strategy, and treatment is the alternative.


3. Some diseases have sequelae or adverse effects. For example, with syphilis, even if the infection is cured, the antibody will still be positive, and others will know that you have been infected with syphilis, which will have a bad impact; for example, with COVID-19, there is the possibility of sequelae.


4. Treatment drugs have side effects, and treatment may delay normal work and life. For example, some tuberculosis patients need to rest, avoid contact, and not do physical work during treatment; most drug treatments have side effects and increase the burden on the liver and kidneys.


Think about the problem from another angle. The people involved in prevention are infected people and healthy people, and the people involved in treatment are only infected people. If treatment is more operable and convenient than prevention, there is no need to choose a method with a larger audience, so prevention It must be of more practical significance than treatment. You can imagine how much safety a Meta Hunter can bring you and how much treatment costs you can save!