NCD Alliance

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are threatening millions of lives unless major policy changes take effect, according to experts speaking at a press conference held in Lille, France as part of the 42nd Union World Conference on Lung Health.

Today is World Stroke Day. There are 15 million people who have a stroke each year. Every other second, an adult or a child, a man or a woman, old or young, suffers a stroke.

The NCD Alliance applauds the World Health Organization for convening the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, coming to an end today in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The NCD Alliance congratulates the Government of Brazil for hosting the conference and for providing global leadership on the social determinants of health; and welcomes the adoption of the Rio Declaration as an important and comprehensive set of global commitments.

“…..New figures from the WHO Mental Health Atlas 2011 indicate that while the need for mental health care is large, with up to 25% of the population requiring it at some point in their lives, there is underinvestment in the sector. The Atlas shows average global spending on mental health is still less than US$ 3 per capita per year and as little as US$ 0.25 per person per year in low-income countries.

New York – The NCD Alliance, a network of more than 2,000 non-government organizations tackling non-communicable diseases (NCDs), today welcomed two new studies aimed at helping decision makers in low- and middle-income countries reduce the growing burden of NCDs. 

Governments must use Summit momentum to agree ambitious targets to curb the epidemic; and are urged to start drafting costed national NCD plans immediately.

South Africa has set targets to radically reduce NCDs through a set of time-bound commitments, including a target to reduce salt intake to less than 5 g/day by per person by 2020. These targets were announced at a recent National Summit on NCDs held on 12-13 September ahead of next week's UN High-Level Meeting. President Jacob Zuma will be attending the High-Level Meeting and is expected to announce these commitments to member states.

The NCD Alliance welcomes agreement by leaders of the 193 UN Member States on a Political Declaration recognizing the scale of the global NCD crisis and the urgent need for action ahead of a High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on 19-20 September.

In early 2009, a meeting was held in Geneva between the World Health Organization (WHO) Stop TB Department and Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion, the World Diabetes Foundation and The Union to discuss how to respond to the growing threat of diabetes-associated tuberculosis. Now after much collaborative work between these and other stakeholders, the WHO/Union Collaborative Framework for Care and Control of TB and Diabetes has been launched.

World Action on Salt and Health has today released a statement calling for all countries to support Norway's proposed target in UN High-Level Meeting negotiations requesting member states to commit to reducing worldwide salt consumption to 5/g per capita.