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Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Halve  halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
 
 
 
Epidemic diseases exact a huge toll in human suffering and lost opportunities for development. Poverty, armed conflict, and natural disasters contribute to the spread of disease and are worsened by it.
 
In Africa the spread of HIV/AIDS has reversed decades of improvements in life expectancy and left millions of children orphaned. It is draining the supply of teachers and eroding the quality of education.
 
There are 300–500 million cases of malaria each year, leading to more than 1 million deaths. Nearly all the cases and more than 95 percent of the deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most deaths from malaria are among children younger than five years old.
 
Tuberculosis kills some 2 million people a year, most of them 15–45 years old. The disease is spreading more rapidly because of the emergence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis; the spread of HIV/AIDS, which reduces resistance to tuberculosis; and the growing number of refugees and displaced people.
 
 As the HIV/AIDS epidemic matures, the death toll keeps rising
 Left axis: adult (ages 15–49) HIV prevalence rate (%);
 right axis: number of deaths due to AIDS (millions)
 

Source: UNAIDS/WHO 2005.

       

 
Worldwide, 40 million adults and children are living with HIV/AIDS and almost 5 million new infections occurred in 2005. The adult prevalence rate has stabilized in Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions, not because the epidemic has been halted but because the death rate now equals the rate of new infections.
 
Although prevalence rates are lower outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people infected is increasing and so is the death rate. There were almost a million new cases in South and East Asia, where more than 7 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS.
 
 The HIV epidemic can be reversed
 Model projections of HIV infections in Sub-Saharan Africa (millions)
    

Source: Salomon and others 2005.
     

    
What will it take to halt and reverse the HIV epidemic? A combination of effective treatment and prevention programs. Antiretroviral therapy is starting to reach people in poor countries, although not yet at the levels needed, and prevention programs have begun to alter behavior. Computer simulations of the epidemic suggest that a combination of intensive treatment and prevention programs would be most effective in reducing new infections and averting 10 million deaths between now and 2020.
 
 
 Tuberculosis rates on the rise or falling slowly
 Incidence of tuberculosis (per 100,000 people)
    

Source: World Bank staff estimates.
 

     
Each year there are 8 million new cases of tuberculosis— million in South and East Asia, 2 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter million in countries of the former Soviet Union. The disease has spread fastest in poor countries with ineffective health systems. Poorly managed tuberculosis programs allow drug-resistant strains to spread. And tuberculosis is often associated with HIV infections, which compromise the body’s immune system. Positive diagnosis, effective treatment, and follow-up care can achieve high cure rates, but many cases go undetected.
 

    
Malaria is a leading killer in Africa
 Malaria deaths (per 100,000 people)

Source: WHO 1999.
 

 
Malaria, once widespread, is now largely a disease of the tropics. It takes its greatest toll in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than million people die each year, most of them children under the age of five. Millions more suffer from repeated infections, leaving them unable to work for weeks at a time. The World Bank estimates that the disease has slowed economic growth in Africa by 1.3 percent a year (World Bank 2001 ).
 

    
Poor children bear the burden of malaria
 Children under age 5 receiving antimalarial treatment (%)

Source: World Bank 2005e
 

 
Malaria is a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. Although adults may experience repeated bouts of the debilitating disease, children are most likely to die—more than 2,000 children die each day because of malaria in Sub- Saharan Africa. Effective treatment can save lives and reduce the burden of disease, but in many countries children in the poorest families do not receive treatment. Prevention is also important. The use of insecticide-treated bednets has been shown to protect children.
         
 Text figures & Boxes
As the HIV/AIDS epidemic matures, the death toll keeps rising
 

   
The HIV epidemic can be reversed

               

Tuberculosis rates on the rise or falling slowly

           
Malaria is a leading killer in Africa

   
Poor children bear the burden of malaria