Respiratory Decade supporting Global action against the non-communicable diseases

Respiratory Decade is active participant of the global action against the non-communicable diseases (NCD)!

Of 57 million global deaths in 2008, 36 million, or 63%, were due to NCD. The four main NCDs are cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases. The burden of these diseases is rising disproportionately among lower income countries and populations. In 2008, nearly 80% of noncommunicable disease deaths -- 29 million -- occurred in low- and middle-income countries with about 29% of deaths occuing before the age of 60 in these countries.

The leading causes of NCD deaths in 2008 were cardiovascular diseases (17 million deaths, or 48% of all NCD deaths), cancers (7.6 million, or 21% of all NCD deaths), and respiratory diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (4.2 million). Diabetes caused another 1.3 million deaths.

Heart and lung diseases, cancer and diabetes touch millions of people worldwide, inflicting great loss of life and suffering, as well as placing great socioeconomic burdens on families, communities and countries worldwide. But action against the global epidemics of these noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and the shared risk factors that contribute to them has now being taken on a global scale. 

Governments, civil society, many business leaders, academia, healthcare providers and the United Nations family are uniting in the fight against NCDs ahead of the 2011 UN General Assembly High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of NCDs. This films describes the issues, challenges and opportunities to scale up international action against these diseases.

As wrote Professor Geneau in Lancet: "neglect of chronic disease by international agencies and national governments is a political, not a technical, failure since cost-effective interventions are available".

RESPIRATORY DECADE suggests working together on common aim: to help people with Non-Communicable Diseases and to prevent the increase of these diseases in the world by simple interventions on tobacco, salt, diets, alcohol!