What countries have high death rates due to non-communicable diseases?

The World health Organization affirms that non-communicable diseases account for 71% of global deaths annually, killing almost 41 million people.

Non-communicable disease, also called chronic disease, tend to be of a long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioral factors. These differ from the communicable diseases as they are not infectious in nature and are not transmitted by direct contact.

Although, curative in nature, the preventive measures of the non-communicable diseases are largely associated with four major conditions. These are: alcohol and substance abuse, tobacco consumption, unhealthy eating diets and physical inactivity. It affects populations of all age groups and gender but largely is seen between the age groups of 30-69 years. The major categories of the non-communicable diseases are – cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes.

Implications:

The factors affecting these non-communicable diseases are also forces resulting in rapid urbanization. Migration in search of better health facilities and means to support such expenditures drive the affected to the urban areas.

These diseases also entrench the victims into poverty due to large expenditures on treatment. This has an economic impact of undercutting productivity and loss of human resources. Healthcare expenditure was the highest for cardiovascular diseases, increasing the per capita healthcare expenditure and affecting the national income.

How the global community approaches these challenges will determine the global health landscape for years to come. The low-and-middle income countries account for 80% of the deaths by non-communicable diseases. It is the young populations in these countries that become the target. The World Economic Forum has placed non-communicable diseases third, in terms of risk to global economic loss and fourth in terms of impact. The NCD epidemic is growing fastest in the poorest countries: NCDs are among the leading killers in the poorest countries and the epidemiological transition in these countries is taking place very rapidly.

This has attracted the global attention, ensuing in various measures taken to combat the alarming issue. The president of the United Nations with the support of WHO organized and presided over an interactive hearing in July on ‘Prevention and Control of NCDs,’ in order to tackle the global epidemic.

The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in order to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases on its member states has adopted a resolution that recognizes the work and achievements of the United Nations Interagency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases (UNIATF) and the need for greater resources to be made available for the prevention and control of NCDs.

Statistically, countries like Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina have high cases of deaths reported by NCDs ranging between 94.5%-95.3% of the total deaths. Local community-based approaches and multi-sectoral collaboration for health policies are crucial in attaining sustainable results. On the other hand, African nations like Somalia, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Kenya, Niger and Chad have lower reported cases of deaths by NCDs, ranging between 23.9%-27.3% of the total deaths. The failure in African countries in implementing public health awareness programs and waning from achieving NCDs indicators refrain them from progressing.

Below lying table depicts the percentage deaths by NCDs of the total number of deaths, in countries -:

Know more:

• Countries with highest death rates due to heart disease
• Countries with type-2 Diabetes

• Recent epidemic outbreak around the World
• Healthcare expenditure around the world

Related maps: