More countries are struggling to reduce chronic disease risk factors such as cancer and heart disease while trying to cope with maternal and child deaths, the World Health Organization says.
A "double burden" of infectious ailments and diseases like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are posing challenges, the UN health agency said.
Heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer now make up to two-thirds of all deaths worldwide, due in part to population aging, according to a report on health statistics released on Friday.
The latest WHO figures showed that about four out of 10 men and one in 11 women are using tobacco and about one in eight adults is obese.
In developing countries, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria are most likely to kill children under the age of five.
"This evidence really shows that no country in the world can address health from either an infectious disease perspective or a noncommunicable disease one. Everyone must develop a health system that addresses the full range of the health threats in both areas," Ties Boerma, director of health statistics at WHO, said in a release.
In high-income countries, virtually all births are attended by skilled health personnel, which falls to 40 per cent of deliveries in low-income countries, the report's authors found.
There has been a decline in the number of women dying from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, and a rise in the average life expectancy to 68 years in 2009, up from 64 years in 1990.
WHO attributes to the progress to higher spending on health care, immunization programs, education and other factors.
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