"This fourth volume of the Global Burden of Disease and Injuries Series provides the reader with information on the epidemiology and burden of major infectious and parasitic diseases. As with previous volumes of the Global Burden of Disease study, the chapters in this book detail the situation as experienced in the year 1990. Since then the epidemiology of some of the conditions described has changed, and where this is the case the authors have added a brief paragraph acknowledging this. The chapters therefore do not provide a detailed update on the current burden of disease, which is accommodated in the documentation of the Global Burden of Disease 2000 and published elsewhere."--Preface.