Thursday, September 15, 2011

Opportunities for Prevention and Control(cont...)

Global and National Policy Context for NCDs

In 2000, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution (WHA/53.17) endorsing a WHO Global Strategy for the prevention and control of NCDs. The Director-General of WHO was requested to continue giving priority to the prevention and control of NCDs and the member states were requested to develop national policy frameworks and to promote initiatives.

In 2003 and 2004, the World Health Assembly adopted the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. In 2008, it endorsed the 2008– 2013 Action Plan for the Global Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases.

The plan focuses on four types of NCDs—CVD, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes— because current evidence indicates that these make a large contribution to mortality in the majority of low- and middle-income countries. These diseases are also largely preventable by means of effective interventions that tackle their risk factors, that is, tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and harmful use of alcohol. As said, as CVD accounts for a large toll in South Asia, they are the major focus of this book.

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