THE WORLD NUMBER ONE KILLER: NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Here's my latest article published on Impakter Magazine: 



Non-communicable diseases are the major global health issue that most people have never heard of. Yet it kills nearly 40 million people every year, more than traffic accidents (1.3 million) or scary communicable disease outbreaks like Zika and Ebola that do make it in the news, but rarely exceed 10,000 deaths. For example, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed 11,310 (latest Centers for Disease Control data).

NCDs include four major diseases that you can’t catch from someone else:

  • cardio-vascular diseases (stroke and heart attacks, 48% of NCD deaths),
  • cancer (21%),
  • chronic respiratory diseases (12%),
  • diabetes (3.5%).

This is not to belittle the threat or devastation caused by communicable diseases. Currently, the massive cholera outbreak in Yemen that has infected some 800,000 people in the past year and a plague outbreak in Madagascar that has killed nearly 100 people in two months are making the news. Rightly so, these are people in urgent need of help.

But NCDs should not be underestimated: They cause 70% of deaths globally, and nearly 50% of global disability. High-income countries are more affected than low-income countries (88% vs. 37%, 2015 data). As a result, there is a misperception that NCDs are a high-income country problem, but that’s not the case.

It’s a global problem.

And as I argue in the article, it's a global problem the World Health Organization (WHO) has been addressing over the past two decades...almost single-handedly. To find out what is being done, click here. This is an issue I feel very strongly about, and it's high time it be given the attention it deserves. The future of our children depends on it.

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