ABSTRACT
In the developing world infectious diseases account for the majority
of deaths in adults and more than half of all deaths in children
(see Table 4.1).1 Women and children bear a disproportional share
of the disease burden. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and
tuberculosis together are estimated to kill more than 3.5 million
people a year.2 Each year over two million people die of malaria,
about four million of acute respiratory infections, and nearly three
million of enteric infections. High-quality diagnostic tests for many
infectious diseases are commercially available, but they are neither
accessible nor affordable to patients in most of the developing
Table 4.1 Top five causes of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Europe 2001 (from Kent et al. 2006)
world.3,4 The lack of access to good quality diagnostic tests for
infectious diseases to guide management decisions is a major
contributor to the enormous burden of ill health in the developing
world.
