HIV, TOBACCO ARE BIGGEST KILLERS WORLDWIDE

CARDIFF, Wales (Reuters) - The best way to reduce death rates
worldwide is to target the biggest killers -- the HIV virus and
tobacco, a British scientist said on Monday.

Richard Peto, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at
Oxford University, told a science conference that the only two causes
of death that are increasing fast worldwide are the HIV virus that
causes AIDS and tobacco.

``You can save far more lives by a moderate reduction in the big
causes of death than by a large reduction in smaller causes,'' he said.

``Tobacco is still the biggest killer we've got,'' he told the British
Association of Science, adding that 100 million people will die from
smoking worldwide over the next 20 years.

While infant deaths have decreased at amazing rates in the last 100
years, with only about one percent of children worldwide dying before
their fifth birthday, Peto said the emphasis has shifted to preventing
deaths in middle age which is becoming a global priority.

In the United States tobacco causes one third of all deaths in people
before the age of 70.

Twelve percent of deaths among middle-aged American men in 1990 were
caused by smoking, which was responsible for nearly a third of the
deaths in women of the same age group.

Britain has experienced one of the biggest drops worldwide in
middle-age death rates in the past 30 years, mainly because of a
decline in smoking.

In 1965, 42 percent of men died before the age of 70 and nearly half
of these deaths were due to smoking. By 1995 the death rate dropped to
28 percent and only a third were attributed to tobacco.

``The decrease in mortality is being driven by a decrease in
tobacco,'' Peto said.

Smoking is also the cause of most of the differences in death rates
between the rich and poor because the people from lower social classes
and on smaller incomes are more likely to take up the habit.

But the news, he added, was not all bad and even heavy smokers still
had a chance to beat the statistics.

``Half of all smokers are killed by tobacco, but stopping works
amazingly well; even in middle age smokers who stop avoid most of
their risk of death from tobacco and stopping before middle age avoids
almost all the risk,'' he said.

Turning his attention to the HIV virus, Peto said it will evolve
differently in different populations. The newest drugs have prolonged
the lives of many AIDS sufferers but they are expensive and
unaffordable in developing countries where the virus is spreading at
alarming rates.

Experts at the World AIDS conference in Geneva earlier this summer
agreed that a vaccine against the virus is still years away and
prevention is the best way to deal with the disease, particularly in
poor nations.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry