Abstract
Sustainable development is a three-fold concept including economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability. Sustainable development belongs to the social and cultural avenues of life, too, and health is an indispensable component in it. Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development, and they are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. The goals of sustainable development can only be achieved in the absence of a high prevalence of debilitating diseases and proper management of health activities at the grassroots level.
This study reveals that a good proportion of the tribal population is suffering from problems of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). These STDs are causing severe damage to them, not only physiologically but also socially and economically. The consequences related to STDs are endless. The HIV/AIDS phenomenon has made it more dreadful. The situation is more horrible in the tribal context because of their comparative unawareness about health and related activities. Findings reveal that a complete treatment of such STDs among the tribal persons is not a regular phenomenon; hence, an untreated STD not only keeps on multiplying the symptoms and the complications within the carrier but also results in spreading the disease fast within the community. Thus, the relation between disease and health is simple-when disease sustains, health suffers. Sustainable development aims at just the opposite situation, in which health sustains and disease suffers (gets eradicated).
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