Underlying Changes Boost Medicine Demand
One of these is the growth in obesity and NCDs (non-communicable diseases). The region has traditionally suffered under-nourishment; an insufficient food intake associated with rural poverty and related forms of exclusion (including things such as limited access to safe drinking water). However, as a result of rising living standards, particularly during the decade-long commodity export boom (running up to 2012) undernourishment, while still persistent in some areas, now affects a smaller proportion of the total population than it did before. As a proportion of the total Latin American and Caribbean population, undernourishment almost halved from 12% in 2000 to 6.6% in 2016. The region did better than the global average – where 11% of the total population remained undernourished in 2016.