One report of the WHO published on Monday sounds the alarm, announcing that each year, 16 million deaths could be avoided thanks to measures of prevention.
“The international community is fortunate to be able to change the course of non-communicable diseases,” said Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO, during the presentation of the report. “By investing between one and three dollars per year per person, countries could greatly reduce the number of patients and deaths from these non-communicable diseases”, she added, without which “millions of lives will be lost again. lost too soon. »
Also called chronic diseases, non-communicable diseases generally evolve slowly, but over time. The four main conditions are cardiovascular diseases (infarction and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for example) or even diabetes. Anti-tobacco, anti-alcohol and healthy lifestyle and physical activity policies could prevent a large proportion of the deaths caused by these diseases. In 2000, 14.6 million people died prematurely from non-communicable diseases due to lack of prevention. In 2012, they were 16 million. The WHO encourages countries to act accordingly, especially low- and middle-income countries. In the latter, the number of deaths due to this type of pathology is higher than the number of deaths caused by infectious diseases.
An action plan and goals to achieve
In 2013, the WHO launched an action plan to reduce the number of premature deaths by 25% by 2020. Some countries have already achieved results. In Turkey, for example, the number of smokers fell by 13.4% between 2008 and 2012, following the rise in the price of tobacco and anti-tobacco campaigns on cigarette packets. In Hungary, the consumption of sugary drinks has fallen by 30% on average following a campaign denouncing the dangers of sugar for health. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Mexico and the United States have launched prevention campaigns to lower the salt content of food.
For the WHO, the costs of these preventive measures represent approximately 11.2 billion dollars per country per year, but could save many lives. Currently, tobacco kills 6 million people each year, alcohol 3.3 million, lack of physical activity kills 3.2 million and excess salt in food 1.7 million.
In its report, the WHO is also concerned about the harmful effects ofobesity in children, who quickly develop cardiovascular problems, hypertension or diseases related to osteoarthritis. The WHO estimates that worldwide in 2013, 42 million children under the age of five were obese.
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