Health
World Health Assembly: Political will needed to curb non-communicable diseases
Non-communicable diseases kill 41 million people each year, low and middle-class countries account for 80 per cent of these deaths
By Richard Mahapatra
Published: Friday 25 May 2018
“The Assembly recognised that enhanced political leadership is needed to accelerate prevention and control of NCDs, such as by implementing cost-effective and feasible best buys and other recommended interventions to prevent and control NCDs,” says a presser from the World Health Organization.
During the World Health Assembly, WHO released its “Saving lives, Spending less” report that has for the first time measured the “health and economic benefits of implementing the most cost-effective and feasible interventions to prevent and control NCDs (WHO Best Buys) in low- and lower-middle-income countries”.
This report recommends, what is now known as the ‘Best Buys’ formula, that by spending on prevention, over 17 million cases of ischemic heart disease and stroke by 2030 could be avoided in low- and lower-middle-income countries that account for 80 per cent of deaths due to NCDs in the world. But global health funding dedicates just about 1 per cent for prevention and treatment of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries.
According to WHO’s Best Buys formula, every investment of US $0.49/per capita to avoid NCDs would fetch economic benefits worth US $1.35 by 2020. By 2030, the report estimates, every investment of US $1 would fetch benefits worth US $7 per capita.
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India Environment Portal Resources :
- Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to NCDs
- REPLACE: a roadmap to make the world trans fat free by 2023
- Increased risk of ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes in women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus, a target group in general practice for preventive interventions: A population-based cohort study
- Noncommunicable Diseases Progress Monitor, 2017
- Effectiveness of the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP) to prevent obesity in UK primary-school children: a cluster randomised controlled trial
- Nations within a nation: variations in epidemiological transition across the states of India, 1990–2016 in the Global Burden of Disease Study
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