During the past two decades astonishing progress has been made in fighting infectious diseases in poor countries. Polio has almost been eradicated; malaria is being tamed; HIV/AIDS is slowly being brought under control. Yet almost unnoticed, another epidemic is raging across the developing world, this one man-made. Road crashes now kill 1.3m people a year, more than malaria or tuberculosis. On present trends, by 2030 they will take a greater toll than the two together, and greater even than HIV/AIDS. The vast majority of victims die in poor and middle-income countries–1.2m in 2011, compared with 99,000 in rich ones. For every 100,000 cars in the rich world, fewer than 15 people die each year. In Ethiopia the figure is 250 times higher. (Author/publisher)
Abstract