Attention remains focused on the threats from communicable diseases, yet cancer death rates have long sped past the death toll from malaria, TB and HIV/Aids combined. In low-income countries NCDs – typically slow and debilitating illnesses – are seeing a fraction of the money needed being invested or donated. Investment in tackling these common and chronic conditions that kill 71% of us is incredibly low, while the cost to families, economies and communities is staggeringly high. Disease, disability and death are perfectly designed to create and widen inequality – and being poor makes it less likely you will be diagnosed accurately or treated.
NCDs, once seen as illnesses of the wealthy, now have a grip on the poor. Approximately 80% are preventable, and all are on the rise, spreading inexorably around the world as ageing populations and lifestyles pushed by economic growth and urbanisation make being unhealthy a global phenomenon. The main types are cancers, chronic respiratory illnesses, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – heart attacks and stroke. Instead, they are caused by a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors. NCDs are simply that unlike, say, a virus, you can’t catch them.
These illnesses end the lives of approximately 41 million of the 56 million people who die every year – and three quarters of them are in the developing world. The human toll of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is huge and rising.
0 kommentar(er)
