Few other infectious diseases have the potential to kill millions of people of all ages so quickly. Medical experts believe cases of hepatitis C have reached epidemic proportions and predict the lingering liver disease will kill more people than AIDS over the next two decades. The professor of internal medicine at the University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri,8 and other experts believe deaths from hepatitis C will triple in the next 20 years. Between one to two percent of the population in most developed countries is infected with the virus but the numbers are much higher in some parts of eastern Europe and Africa. Reuters A flesh-rotting bacteria called buruli that lurks in soil is attacking man as never before, especially in Africa.
Death often comes from multiple infections, exhaustion, and blood poisoning.
In four years, the number of affected people doubled. There is no known cure for buruli, which is similar to tuberculosis. Half the people infected don't realize they have the disease, which health authorities talk only of trying to control. Eradication is not even on the horizon. The World Health Organization estimates that more people will die from TB this year than in any other year in history.