According to the WHO, there will be 20 million new cancer patients each year by 2020. Among poorer countries, China is expected to bear the brunt of cancer's advance. The country is the world's biggest producer and consumer of cigarettes, with an annual output of more than 1.8 trillion. An estimated 800,000 people died because of smoking last year, and the toll will top the one-million mark next year. Salmonella enteritidis, once only found in rats and mice, has reached epidemic proportions among humans.
Scientists believe the bug has spread by rodents infecting factory-farmed chickens.
It then reaches humans through chicken meat and eggs. Detecting enteritidis in broiler chickens is difficult, in eggs impossible. Although it makes itself miserably apparent in humans once diagnosed, it is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Intensive farming methods have enabled the infection to flourish. A vaccination program which began in the UK in 1994 seems to have had little effect in controlling the epidemic.