Redirecting Biological Warfare Capacity to International Health Biotechnology

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Health Report 1997 presents a global picture of the unremitting importance of infectious diseases and particularly of their impact on developing nations. Worldwide, 17 of 52 million deaths (33%) in 1996 were due to infectious diseases. Forty of the 52 million deaths (77%) were in developing countries. Of the 40 million deaths in developing countries, 43% were due to infectious causes. Pneumonia killed 3.9 million people in 1996. Tuberculosis killed 3 million Diarrheal diseases killed 2.5 million HIV/AIDS killed about 1 5 million and 29.4 million children and adults were infected by HIV at the end of 1996.