Factfile - Health

• Nearly a billion people worldwide do not get enough to eat each day. At the same time, an estimated 600 million people - mostly in North America and Europe - are overnourished and overweight. - World Health Organisation
• If the growth in tobacco use goes unchecked, the number of deaths will nearly triple, from 4 million each year today to 10 million each year in 30 years. More than 70 per cent of this increase will take place in developing countries. - Gro Harlem Brundtland, Reith lectures 2000
• The average infant mortality rate for richer countries is 12 per 1,000 live births; for all developing countries it is 64. - Oxford Handbook of the World
• More than 18 million people have died from Aids since the epidemic began, almost 15 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The toll can be expected to double over the next decade, since more than 34 million people are now estimated to be living with HIV or Aids. - UNAIDS
• "The Aids situation in Africa is catastrophic. The epidemic is bound to get worse before it gets better. A relatively modest contribution - $3 billion - would do something to turn this catastrophic situation around. This is a fraction of the $52 billion spent annually in the United States on obesity." - Peter Piot, executive director, UNAIDS
• World life expectancy is now 67 years. - Oxford Handbook of the World
• Some 1.8 billion people - nearly one-third of the world's population - now carry the tuberculosis bacterium. If control is not strengthened, the World Health Organisation predicts nearly a billion more will be infected by 2020. - Vital Signs 2000-2001

Back to Millennium Magazine 2001 contents