[1] After Comoros's independence in 1975, the French withdrew their medical teams, leaving the three islands' already rudimentary health care system in a state of severe crisis.
[4] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 84.1% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.
[1] Their generally poor diets were deficient in protein in part because local custom discouraged the feeding of fish to children.
[1] The scarcity of safe drinking water—available to about one in three Comorans—made intestinal parasites a problem and compounded malnutrition, with children again being the main victims.
[1] Although the Comoros lacks homegrown narcotics, the islands are used as a transit site for drugs coming mainly from Madagascar.
[1] In view of international concern about drug trafficking, in 1993 France began providing technical expertise in this field to the Comoros.
[1] In addition, the World Bank in a 1994 report pointed out the "high prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases and the low use of condoms" as a significant health threat with regard to the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which already affected the islands.