One obvious explanation is that a sharp fall in population forced up wages, and higher wages encouraged what the academics called an “industrious revolution”. Listening to the NHS staff returning from fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, it is obvious that poverty still kills as efficiently as it always has. It is also a brutal reminder of an everyday fact in rural Africa – that poverty kills. Make sure the new list includes tackling some of the structural barriers that stand between ordinary Africans and a growing income. The way to end diseases of poverty is, after all, by ending poverty.