Global life expectancy has risen by more than six years since 1990 thanks to falling death rates from cancer and heart disease in rich countries and better survival in poor countries from diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria.
But in an analysis of the 2013 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, health researchers said that while life expectancy is rising almost everywhere in the world, one notable exception is southern sub-Saharan Africa, where deaths from HIV/AIDS have erased some five years of life expectancy since 1990.
"The progress we are seeing against a variety of illnesses and injuries is good — even remarkable — but we can and must do even better," said Christopher Murray, a professor of global health at the University of Washington who led the study. It was published in The Lancet medical journal.