AIDS is leading infectious killer, WHO says

AIDS is leading infectious killer, WHO says

By GEIR MOULSON

GENEVA (May 11, 1999 11:25 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - AIDS has grown to become the world's most deadly infectious disease in the last year, surpassing tuberculosis and moving up to fourth place among all causes of death worldwide, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

A decline in deaths attributed to TB accounted for AIDS moving up from last year's seventh-place ranking. The estimated number of deaths caused by AIDS in 1998 remained comparable to the previous year's death count, about 2.28 million worldwide.

The WHO's list is topped by heart disease, which killed almost 7.38 million people last year - 13.7 percent of deaths worldwide.

Strokes and acute respiratory infections accounted for 5.1 million and 3.45 million deaths respectively, the agency said.

WHO said noncommunicable ailments would probably continue to account for a majority of global disease because of aging populations, a lack of exercise, and tobacco and alcohol abuse.

Tuberculosis, which last year was the world's most deadly transmittable disease, fell from fourth to eighth place overall. It killed just under 1.5 million people in 1998.

Experts arrived at that figure - which compares with 2.9 million in the 1997 report - after a long-term effort to improve estimates, said Mario Raviglione, coordinator of WHO's epidemiology research team. HIV-related deaths from tuberculosis were removed.

"AIDS has been with us for just 20 years and already it is killing more people than any other infectious disease," said Peter Piot, executive director of the specialized UNAIDS agency.

"It is the most formidable pathogen to confront modern medicine."

In Africa, it was the leading cause of death, accounting for 19 percent of fatalities - some 2 million people. Heart disease led the rankings in the Americas, Europe and Southeast Asia.