Preventable disease

Avoidable illness

Incidence

Each year malaria claims at least 1 million lives; tuberculosis 3 million; diarrhoeal disease 4 million. Most of these deaths are among the vulnerable (the very young or the aged). The annual death rate from AIDS is expected to be 400,000 by the year 2000.

Claim

Number of people in Washington, D.C. who were murdered by anthrax poisoning between September 11 and November 9, 2001 was 2; Number of people murdered by other means in the same city during the same period was 53 (World Watch Magazine, January/February 2002).