I think you're orders of magnitude off on your annual deaths[1]. It seems that most recorded influenza deaths are from pneumonia, and aside from the very rare a

I think you're orders of magnitude off on your annual deaths[1]. It seems that most recorded influenza deaths are from pneumonia, and aside from the very rare and deadly influenza strains, far more people have died from malaria than any other disease in the 20th century - perhaps aside from only smallpox. Malaria is believed to kill on the order of a half million or more a year. There are other infectious diseases that kill millions of people - such as the many illnesses that cause diarrhea - and these are also prevalent in Africa, and related to health care. Ultimately improving health care has cumulative effects. A society that does not need to worry about malaria (or influenza, for that matter) can begin to work on other issues. When so many children die every year from a random illness, adults cannot plan families, governments cannot address other issues. It's vital that malaria be cured because it is necessary to solve many other issues. Improving health care, period, would reduce the population growth rate and allow more resources to be dedicated to education, infrastructure, and yes, further improving health care. It's only in places like the United States, where the leading causes of death are from ourselves (car crashes), from disease associated with old age (cancer, heart disease), and our mistakes (medical mistakes), that we can be a society that looks so far forward. It's difficult for someone in the 21st to realize that our treatment of influenza and other diseases has prepared us to be a super power. Diseases just don't kill people very often in the US, and allowing young children and their parents to not worry has drastically changed our society. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influenza_b_4661442.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influ...