More than $1.1 billion was spent on Ebola in 2014, and donors have invested record sums in health-related Millennium Development Goals since 2000

SEATTLE—People are living much longer worldwide than they were two decades ago, as death rates from infectious diseases and cardiovascular disease have fallen, according to a new, first-ever journal publication of country-specific cause-of-death data for 188 countries.

New HIV infections dropped by almost one-third from the epidemic peak; TB deaths declined by 3.7% between 2000 and 2013; child deaths from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa have dropped 31.5% in the past decade. Despite major progress, the quality of programs to treat HIV varies widely.