Hearing

With nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide, as many as 1 in 4 people will have some degree of hearing loss by 2050. That's the warning from the World Health Organization (WHO). - Untreated hearing loss can have a devastating impact on people's ability to communicate, study and earn a living. It can also affect people's mental health and their ability to maintain relationships, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general. This can be prevented by integrating ear and hearing care into primary health care. In most countries, medical care for people with hearing problems is limited. Patients have to seek medical care in the private sector, even if they have some form of health insurance.

WHO stresses that the biggest problem is the glaring shortage of medical staff specializing in treating ear diseases. - Among low-income countries, some 78 percent have less than one ENT specialist, 93 percent have less than one audiologist, only 17 percent have one or more speech therapists, and 50 percent have one or more teachers for the deaf per million population.

In children, nearly 60 percent of confirmed hearing loss can be prevented with measures such as vaccinations to prevent rubella and meningitis, better maternal and newborn care, and screening and early treatment of otitis media, inflammatory diseases of the middle ear. In adults, noise control, safe music listening and ototoxic drug surveillance along with good ear hygiene are key.

- Today, almost all hearing defects can be operated on, while the results depend on who comes to us and when. Hence the importance of preventive measures already among the youngest. To date, we have screened more than 1.5 million children for early detection of hearing defects, thanks to which today we have a large number of patients with early stages of the disease, and the already implemented treatment is faster, more effective and cheaper - both for the patient and the system," says Professor Henryk Skarzynski, director of the World Hearing Center in Kajetany.