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Aborigines still suffer from leprosy and tuberculosis, decades after the diseases were eradicated from the rest of the Australian population.
Aborigines' well-being lags almost a century behind that of white Australians, says a report for the World Health Organisation on indigenous people, including Maori, American Indians and Canada's First Nations and Inuit. Aborigines were the least healthy of the groups surveyed.
The chapter on Australia and New Zealand was written by Dr Lisa Jackson Pulver, of the University of New South Wales, who said: "The rate of deaths today among indigenous people is the same as it was among non-indigenous people 100 years ago."
Aboriginal men and women can expect to live to an average age of 59 and 65 respectively, compared with 77 for men and 82 for women in the rest of society. In areas of Outback New South Wales the life expectancy of Aboriginal males can be 33 - comparable with Aids-ravaged African states.
