Right now, the world is undergoing a change in the distribution of diseases. In the past, infectious diseases have mostly affected poor countries, and non-communicable diseases have been the demise of rich nations. However, according to the latest data set released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday, the income level of a country isn’t as important anymore, as both types of nations now have to worry about both types of diseases.

Developing countries are now faced with the burden of dealing with non-communicable diseases because of things like an ageing population, changes in birth rates, and improvements from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Ties Boerma, Director of Health Statistics and Informatics at WHO said that the phenomenon of non-communicable diseases in developing nations began in the highly educated classes, but quickly expanded to others.

However, despite the fact that developing countries have to deal with new diseases, the WHO study also showed evidence that these countries are making significant progress towards the MDGs that were decided on by an international community of leaders in the year 2000 at the United Nations general assembly. For example, over the last decade the rate of infant mortality improvement is twice as fast as it was in the 1990s. The deadline to meet these MDGs is 2015.