WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY APPROVES ACTION PLAN FOR CARDIOVASCULAR AND OTHER NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES
Cardiovascular disease was high on the agenda of the 60th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
Meeting 14 to 23 May 2007, the Assembly asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop an action plan for the implementation of the global strategy against cardiovascular and other noncommunicable diseases. The action plan is due at the 61st World Health Assembly in 2008.
The Eleventh General Programme of Work 2006-2015 includes the target of a reduction of death rates from all chronic or noncommunicable diseases by 2% per year during the next 10 years. The WHO estimates that achieving the target would avert 36 million premature deaths – 90% of which would otherwise occur in low- and middle-income countries.
The action plan, according to the resolution, should contain “priorities, actions, a time frame and performance indicators for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases between 2008 and 2013 at global and regional levels.”
Such a plan would “serve as a constructive lever for the implementation of the global strategy and significantly speed up the implementation of that strategy,” said Germany’s WHO representative, speaking on behalf of the European Union.
The World Health Assembly also resolved that member countries should strengthen their national and local efforts to prevent and control cardiovascular and other noncommunicable diseases.
Responding to a proposal by Norway, the World Health Assembly also called on the WHO to develop a set of recommendations on the marketing of foods and nonalcoholic beverages to children. The call was intended to improve the diets of children by reducing their consumption of trans-fats, saturated fats, free sugars and salts.
Norway had first proposed an international code of marketing to children. Although the proposal had broad support, Norway retracted it because of opposition from the United States of America and Switzerland. In its place, Norway substituted the proposal calling for the WHO to develop the set of recommendations about marketing to children.
WHO Director General Margaret Chan used her opening address to describe the heavy toll of cardiovascular and other noncommunicable or chronic diseases and her plans for reducing it.
“Chronic diseases, long considered the companions of affluent societies, now impose their greatest burden in low- and middle-income countries…The distinction between the health problems of rich and poor countries is no longer absolute,” Dr Chan said.
Dr Chan paid particular attention to the global fight against tobacco smoking, calling the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control “one of the most widely embraced treaties in the history of the United Nations”.
“This is really primary prevention at its best,” she said. “To reduce tobacco use, we are now moving from advocacy to a scaling up of interventions.”
Dr Chan presented her medium-term priorities for 2008 to 2013. They included addressing health development and health security, strengthening health systems, using evidence to define strategies and measure results, managing partnerships to get the best results in countries and improving the performance of the WHO.
Of the six priorities, she said that the “urgent need to strengthen health systems” was her “main focus”.
“If we want health development to work as a poverty reduction strategy, we must have health systems that reach the poor,” she said.
She added that she was placing a “renewed emphasis on primary health care as an approach to strengthening health systems.”
Jane Halton, President of the 60th World Health Assembly, from Australia, endorsed Dr Chan’s call for stronger health systems.
“In securing the health of all of the world’s people, we need to build, finance and sustain health systems,” she said.
