This fascinating series investigates the innumerable diseases that blight lives around the globe - and the cutting-edge science that is being developed to combat them. Each programme focuses on a single disease and the attempts to develop treatments that are both effective and affordable to the world’s poor, who make up the vast majority of the victims. These are major killers in the developing world, but are mostly ignored in the West either because the diseases don’t occur there, or because there are effective, but expensive treatments available to the West’s affluent population. Despite this decades-long neglect by modern medical science, this is a documentary series about hope. While millions of lives are lost every year, there are people working on new life-saving treatments.Malaria: it is estimated that every 30 seconds one child dies from the disease.
Kala Azar: the standard drug available is toxic and doctors must decide which poses the greater threat – the disease or its treatment.
Lymphatic Filariasis: a billion people in more than 80 countries are at risk from what is more commonly known as Elephantiasis.
Tuberculosis: this year alone 8 million people will catch tuberculosis.
Diarrhoea: kills around 400,000 children every year, most of them in India and Africa.
Hepatitis B: approximately 350 million people worldwide are chronically infected.
Bilharzia: if left untreated, can eventually block internal organs, causing death.
Polio: at one time affecting 500,000 children every year, there have been only 800 cases in the last 12 months.

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