Chronic diseases such as heart trouble and stroke have replaced infectious diseases as the chief cause of death globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report recently.
The shifting health trends indicate that leading infectious diseases – diarrhea, HIV, tuberculosis, neonatal infections and malaria – will become less important causes of death globally over the next 20 years, according to the World Health Statistics 2008 report.
“We are definitely seeing a trend toward fewer people dying of infectious diseases across the world,” according to Ties Boerma, director of WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics.
“We tend to associate developing countries with infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis, and malaria. But in more and more countries, the main causes of death are non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and stroke,” Boerma said in a statement.
The statistical report documents in detail the levels of mortality in children and adults, patterns of morbidity and burden of disease, prevalence of risk factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption, use of health care, availability of health care workers, and health care financing. |
