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hello once again; more in regard to clinical depression janet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Heart disease, depression to become top killers Germs being surpassed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- September 16, 1996 Web posted at: 2:00 p.m. EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Germs will no longer be the world's leading cause of death and disability in 25 years, as heart disease, depression and car crashes take over as leading killers, the World Health Organization said. Infectious diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea are the world's leading causes of death and disability today and will remain potent threats in 2020. The U.N. agency said in a new study that AIDS alone could kill 1 million to 1.7 million people a year by then. But, "noncommunicable diseases will be the coming epidemic," said Dr. Christopher Murray of Harvard University, a co-author of the study. Already, 30 countries notified of the findings by WHO are considering revising public health programs, now focused almost solely on infections, Murray said. Heart disease became the top killer of rich nations decades ago, and by 2020 will have become the world's No. 1 health threat, the report said. Depression's rise from the No. 4 world health threat in 1990 to second in 2020 will be due mostly to an aging population, Murray said: The proportion of the population over 45 will rise 200 percent. The number of deaths due to car crashes will increase as poor nations speed road development and the young adult population, the age group most often killed on the highways, grows larger, he said. In all, noninfectious disease will account for seven of every 10 deaths in poor countries by 2020, up from fewer than half today. Only in sub-Saharan Africa will germs still kill more people than noninfectious disease. WHO commissioned the study as a road map for governments to spend scarce health resources, said co-author Dean Jamison, a health economist at the University of California, Los Angeles. For example, money now being spent to find a leprosy vaccine might be better directed to a malaria vaccine, since leprosy is rare while malaria causes almost 10 percent of death and disease in sub-Saharan Africa. The report has good news: Life expectancy for girls born in every region of the world will rise by 2020 -- up eight years to age 88 in rich nations. In fact, the only group who won't live longer are men in Eastern Europe, whose 1990 life expectancy of 65 already has plummeted 10 years and is expected to creep back up very slowly, Murray said. Copyright 1996 Associated Press. 1996 Cable News Network, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [log in to unmask]