Lower respiratory infections are now the world’s number one killer. Nearly three million people die from the disease each year, about  half of them children under the age of five.

HIV/AIDS comes in at number two, but is responsible for less than half the number of deaths caused by lower respiratory infections with around 1.3 million deaths reported last year.

The number of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases is at number three with tuberculosis close behind at number four.

Estimates suggest that one-third of the world’s population have been infected by TB but are not ill with the disease, at least not yet, with over 95 per cent of deaths reported in developing countries”.