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This is the short edition of Morales.

First broadcast on the BBC World Service.

Hello and welcome to Morales on the BBC World Service.

I'm Ruth Alexander.

This week we consider the small subject of how long you might live.

There's been a tremendous increase in life expectancy around the world

over the past 20 years or so.

Colin Mayther's from the World Health Organization has been studying it.

Our estimates of global life expectancy from 1990 until around 2010

suggest that there's been a six-year increase in life expectancy

at the global average level.

That reflects substantial improvements in Africa, Asia,

and to a somewhat lesser extent in Latin America,

but also in the Eastern Mediterranean regions.

Life expectancy at birth in Asia has increased by about seven years

in the past 20.

Improved living conditions, access to health care

and efforts to vaccinate children have all played their part.

The same is true of the Eastern Mediterranean region

...