World Health Report 1996

In children, the major diseases disseminated by airborne and droplet spread are acute respiratory infections, particularly pneumonia, influenza, measles, pertussis (whooping cough), meningococcal meningitis and diphtheria, which together kill at least four million. Direct contact diseases in children include poliomyelitis and trachoma, a major cause of blindness in developing countries. Among adults, tuberculosis is the leading airborne disease, killing three million people and infecting almost nine million others every year. It is already the opportunistic infection that most frequently kills HIV-positive people: of an estimated one million AIDS-related deaths in 1995, about one-third may have been due to tuberculosis. Leprosy still affects 1.8 million people in 70 countries, but is steadily being eliminated as a public health problem. Influenza and pneumonia strike children and adults, especially the elderly.