In 25 years AIDS will be the number one killer disease

A study by World Health Organisation (WHO) researchers has predicted that by the year 2030 AIDS will claim as many as 6.5 million lives per year.

AIDS currently kills an estimated 2.9 million people a year, but is expected to take 4.3 million lives by 2015.

According to this latest study, which projects the global figures for mortality and the burden of 10 major disease groups in both 2015 and 2030, smoking will kill 50 percent more people in 2015 than HIV/AIDS and will be responsible for 10 percent of all deaths globally.

According to the study even though by 2030, more people will survive childhood diseases and live longer, the proportion dying from chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes will rise to 70 percent.

The researchers say excluding AIDS, global deaths from the main infectious diseases including malaria, tuberculosis and respiratory infections are on track to decline by then.

The authors say that the appearance of chronic diseases is already being seen in developing countries and problems of cardiovascular disease and cancers are no longer confined to high-income countries.

The authors also say that the spread of AIDS and deaths from the epidemic, had been "substantially underestimated" and HIV/AIDS will become the leading cause of disease in middle- and low-income countries by 2015, and this will be despite antiretroviral drugs reaching 80 percent of those in need by 2012.

According to UNAIDS a mere 24 percent of the 6.8 million AIDS patients in need, receive the life-extending drugs, and those in poor countries are often denied access to treatment due to cost.

Tobacco which currently causes 5.4 million deaths a year, will kill 6.5 million in 2015 and 8.3 million in 2030, with the biggest rise again in low-and middle-income countries.

The WHO has openly accused cigarette companies of targeting youth in poorer countries as their markets shrink in the Western world.

According to the study's baseline scenario, by the year 2030, the three leading causes of illness and disability will be HIV/AIDS, followed by depression and ischemic heart disease.

The study is published in the Public Library of Science Medicine (PLoS Medicine).