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 (see page 66); 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 (see page 50). 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.
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