Deaths from infectious diseases are disproportionately concentrated in developing countries

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is a now annual analysis of the global, regional, and national trends in life, death and disability \cite{Murray_2017}. The GBD is a mammoth effort involving thousands of researchers and provides an incredibly useful window into the changing nature of life expectancy. Encouragingly, the most recent incarnation shows that mortality rates across all age groups have decreased over the last five years, meaning that people are generally living longer, healthier lives than they have done in the past. Despite this heartening news some 10.5 million deaths, or  just under 20% of all globally were due to communicable, maternal, and neonatal causes \cite{Abajobir_2017}. Nevertheless, roughly 50% fewer people died from HIV in 2016 than in 2006, with numbers for TB dropping by 20% and malaria by 25% over the same time period \cite{Abajobir_2017}. Unfortunately, deaths from the most common infectious diseases, like HIV, TB, and malaria disproportionately effect those in the developing world.

Data on health outcomes is worse in developing countries