AWARENESS REMAINS LOW OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE’S IMPACT ON LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES
AWARENESS REMAINS LOW OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE’S IMPACT ON LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES
2-6 September 2006, World Congress of Cardiology, Barcelona – “Awareness of cardiovascular disease’s importance as an economic development issue is still low despite growing evidence that it is ravaging productive workforces in low- and middle-income countries,” said World Heart Federation Chief Executive Officer Janet Voûte.
“Cardiovascular disease continues to be seen largely as a problem of older and affluent people in high-income countries,” said Ms. Voûte. “In fact, it cut short 17.5 million lives last year, making it by far the world’s biggest killer, and 80% of the deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.”1
In A Race Against Time: The Challenge of Cardiovascular Disease in Developing Economies,2 Columbia
University’s Earth Institute found that cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rates among working age people in India, South Africa and Brazil were one-and-a-half to two times that of working age people in the United States. For example, in South Africa 41% of CVD deaths occurred among people 35 to 64 years old. In India, the figure was 35%. In China, it was projected to be more than 50% by 2030.
“Cardiovascular disease in developing countries is cutting into productive workforces in and manifesting the same pattern of mortality as it did in the West in the 1960s before we began preventing and treating,” said Dr Stephen Leeder, a co-author of the report and professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Sydney who is scheduled to speak at the XVth World Congress of Cardiology 2 to 6 September in Barcelona. “Each year in the United States, there are 116 deaths per 100,000 men ages 35 to 59 from heart disease and stroke. In Russia, there are 576. In North America, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, only 10% of deaths in people under age 65 are due to heart attack or stroke. In Brazil, the figure is 28%.”
The World Health Organization puts the economic losses to low- and middle-income countries from
cardiovascular and other chronic diseases in the hundreds of billions of US dollars.3 For example, it projected that China would lose a staggering US$ 558 billion from 2005 to 2015, India US$ 236 billion and the Russian Federation US$ 303 billion. Despite the abundant evidence that cardiovascular and other chronic diseases are weighing down the economies of low- and middle-income countries and inhibiting their ability to advance socially, the United Nations still has not included them among the health-related Millennium Development Goals to be accomplished by 2015.
“To protect the health of future generations, all major diseases must be taken into account,” said Ms Voûte.
“Achieving the World Health Organization’s goal of reducing chronic disease death rates by 2% per year until 2015 would prevent 36 million people from dying of chronic diseases over the next 10 years, nearly half of them before they turn 70.
1 World Health Organization, Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment, 2005.
2 Earth Institute, Columbia University, A Race Against Time: The Challenge of Cardiovascular Disease in Developing Countries, 2004.
3 World Health Organization, Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment, 2005.
“The authors of A Race Against Time were right. We are in a race against time to prevent a global catastrophe. The vital first step must be to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem. Without that, any public health response is bound to be inadequate.”
- Ends -
About the World Heart Federation
The World Heart Federation, a nongovernmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, is committed to helping the global population achieve a longer and better life through prevention and control of heart disease and stroke, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. It is comprised of 189 member societies of cardiology and heart foundations from over 100 countries covering the regions of Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas and Africa.
For further information visit: www.worldheart.org
To read or download A Race Against Time: The Challenge of Cardiovascular Disease in Developing Countries, visit: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/images/raceagainsttime_FINAL_0410404.pdf
To read or download Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment, visit:
http://www.who.int/chp/chronic_disease_report/en/
Press contact:
Michelle Roverelli, Cohn & Wolfe Public Relations
Tel: +41 22 908 4074 or E-mail: michelle_roverelli(at)ch.cohnwolfe.com
At the World Congress of Cardiology, contact Victoria Dix on Tel: +41 79 707 7592 or E-mail:
victoria_dix(at)ch.cohnwolfe.com