ABSTRACT
For young as well as old, the world of 2025 will be
very different from that of today. There are both opti-
mistic and pessimistic signs. The enhanced life
expectancy of children born in the present century
reflects the harvest of health improvements intro-
duced in the twentieth. By then children under five
years (around 8 per cent of the world’s population)
will be outnumbered by the over-65s (10 per cent). By
then the world, already free of smallpox, should also
be free of poliomyelitis, neonatal tetanus and prob-
ably measles. If drug resistance can be overcome,
tuberculosis could be added to that list. Leprosy con-
trol should be well advanced. And most children are
likely to be protected from vaccine-preventable
diseases.
