UN to Hold Summit for Killer Diseases

NGOs around the world lauded the United Nations for organizing a summit that will address the threat posed by non-communicable diseases on the poor and developing countries.

The summit will focus on killer diseases such as, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory illnesses that annually claim some 35 million lives globally.

The United Nations General Assembly will hold a Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Summit involving Heads of State, in September 2011, to address the threat posed by NCDs to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

An alliance of nongovernmental organizations including the World Heart Federation, International Diabetes Federation (IDF), International Union Against Cancer (IUCC) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) who represent the four major diseases, congratulated the United Nations Assembly for coming up with the summit.

The alliance has been at the forefront of advocacy efforts to ensure the rising burden of NCDs was addressed in the global health and development agendas, according to a UN report.

Professor Jean Claude Mbanya, President of the IDF said that, “It is critical to ensure that NCD interventions are integrated into national health systems.”

“Building on the foundation laid by the 2006 UN resolution on diabetes, we welcome the UN decision to hold an NCD Summit and support a wide consultation of the NCD community to ensure that the meeting produces concrete outcomes. We also need further research so that we can estimate the costs and cost-effectiveness of national interventions that are required to address NCDs”

Meanwhile, Mr. George Alleyne, Director Emeritus of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, said recently in a press conference that the ‘occasion was truly historic as, for the first time, the issue of non-communicable diseases had been brought to the highest political level, which now made government involvement possible.”

“It had taken a long time,” he said, “because the epidemic had been a silent one that affected a large number of people. It had become clear, however, that current epidemics were not restricted to infectious diseases as chronic diseases had a major impacts on the world’s population and put a special burden on women, as they usually were the primary caregivers.”

WHO estimates that for the next ten years, global deaths from NCDs will continue to rise and the African region is expected to have a 27 percent increase of incidents.

The summit will bring together government representatives from overseas aid donor countries, LMICs, and public health experts from around the world.

It will try to agree on a collective course of action that needs to be taken to find a solution to the growing danger posed by NCDs.

There have only been 28 such summits in UN history that highlighted the significance of the decision and the magnitude of the problem. The NCD Alliance requests that member states invest the necessary resources to guarantee successful implementation.

“We know how to save lives, and tackle the damaging social and economic impact of non-communicable diseases. This NCD Summit is urgently needed to agree on concrete global actions to address these diseases and their repercussions,” said Professor Pekka Puska, President of the World Heart Federation.

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Tagged as: diabetes, non-communicable diseases, United Nations