World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board meets in Geneva

World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board meets in Geneva

 

Prevention and control of NCDs will be discussed this week

This week the annual meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board is taking place in Geneva.  The Executive Board comes at a critical time for cardiovascular disease and non-communicable disease (NCD) advocacy, following discussions last week by WHO Member States on the creation of global targets and indicators for the prevention and control of NCDs.  The prevention and control of NCDs will be discussed as agenda item 6 at the meeting this week and Director-General Margaret Chan acknowledged NCDs in her opening statement by saying, "public health must address pressing new challenges, beyond the Millennium Development Goals, like chronic non-communicable diseases." 
 
NCDs are the cause of 36 million deaths annually and cardiovascular disease (CVD) constitutes the majority of this burden.  NCDs pose a threat not only to industrialized countries but are cause for concern in low- and middle- income countries as well, where 29% of deaths due to NCDs occur before the age of 60.  NCDs also place an unnecessary burden on the global economy due to the high costs associated with them stemming from direct medical costs as well as lost productivity, the World Economic Forum and Harvard School of Public Health estimate that CVD alone cost the global economy $863 billion USD in 2010.  Therefore, concrete action to combat NCDs must be taken at the global as well as regional level and the creation of a global monitoring framework, targets and indicators for NCDs is necessary to ensure that progress in the global fight against NCDs is achieved. 
 
The NCD Alliance will be delivering a statement to the Executive Board advocating that a set of targets be agreed upon at this year's World Health Assembly (WHA) in May.  Although paragraph 62 of the UN Political Declaration on NCDs states that the governing body of the WHO should agree to NCD targets in 2012, recent developments have indicated that a decision on NCD targets is not guaranteed to be made at this year's WHA. It is vital that civil society push for decisions to be made at the 2012 WHA to ensure that actual progress on NCDs is made and momentum created by September's UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs is not lost. 
 
 
For more information

Complete documentation from the 130th WHO Executive Board >
 
The full text of the Director-General's opening remarks >
 
More about the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs >
 
More information on the creation of targets and the World Heart Federation's role in the process >

Information on creation of targets is also available on the NCD Alliance website >
 
Access the WHO discussion paper outlining the comprehensive monitoring framework and targets for the prevention and control of NCDs >