UN: Preventing non-communicable diseases is affordable

Sep 19, 2011, 15:58 GMT

New York - The deaths of some 36 million people from diseases such as cancer, diabetes and respiratory illnesses could be prevented, the United Nations heard Monday.

Opening its first conference on so-called non-communicable diseases, the General Assembly was told by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that treatment was affordable by the public sector, and involved scaling up nutritional advice and simple measures such cycling to work instead of driving.

80 per cent of those deaths are in developing countries.

'The prognosis is grim,' UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, citing the World Health Organization, which projected deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to increase by 17 per cent in the next decade. But in Africa, that number will jump by 24 per cent.

'These statistics are alarming - but we know how to drive them down,' he said. Ban said treatment can be afforded by all sectors and prevention cost very little, including physical exercise, use of bicycle rather than a car, and in particular good nutrition from infancy to adulthood to fight the NCDs.

Ban was to join US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other high-ranking government officials to discuss nutrition, focusing in particular on nutrition for school children.

He said government health ministers need to work with individuals, civic groups and businesses to fight NCDs.

Micheline Calmy-Rey, president of the Swiss Confederation, whose country hosts the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, said her country plans to step up efforts to fight NCDs without taking resources away from health plans against communicable diseases.

'Let us devise innovative solutions that make use of the potential synergies between governmental actors, civil society, the private sector, Research & Development and the international organizations,' she said.