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Global Health Matters

November - December, 2007  |  Volume 6, Issue 6

Fogarty Director Joins Global Effort to Curb Deaths from Chronic, Non-communicable Diseases

Fogarty's Director Dr. Roger I. Glass and a group of eminent health scientists have published in Nature magazine a landmark global consensus paper detailing 20 measures that are urgently needed to curb humanity's most fatal conditions--chronic, non-communicable diseases.

These diseases account for over 60 percent of deaths worldwide, with four-fifths of those fatalities occurring among citizens of low- and middle-income countries, according to the authors. Such diseases, which in the past were largely confined to industrialized countries, include cardio-vascular disease, type 2 diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, certain cancers and major mental disorders. They result in twice as many deaths as the combined total of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and peri-natal conditions, and nutritional deficiencies.

"It is critical that we galvanize scientists and policy makers on this issue to stem the tide of these slow killer illnesses that are largely preventable," said Dr. Glass. "The grand challenge program aims to encourage research and a public health response that will lessen the impact of these new devastating threats to global health in the 21st century."

Other NIH supporters of the initiative include Dr. Betsy Nabel, Director of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, who was a co-author on the paper.

Twenty grand challenges were identified to restrain and reverse the toll of these illnesses. They are considered to be of equal importance and are grouped under six broad goals: to reorient health systems; mitigate health impacts of poverty and urbanization; engage businesses; modify risk factors; enhance economic, legal and environmental policies; and raise public and political awareness.

Without concerted action, some 388 million people will die of one or more of these diseases in the next 10 years, according to co-author Nizal Sarrafzadegan, of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran. "With concerted action, the number of premature deaths prevented by 2015 would total at least 36 million--a number of people roughly equal to the population of Canada, Algeria or Kenya."

Noting the economic impact of chronic diseases, co-author and former WHO official, Robert Beaglehole, said unless serious action is taken now, over the next decade China will lose an estimated $558 billion in national income, India will suffer a $237 billion loss, and the U.K. will forfeit $33 billion.

The Grand Challenges Global Partnership was established with a secretariat at the Oxford Health Alliance and was funded for the first five years by OxHA members. In addition to OxHA, the founding partners include: the National Institutes of Health; U.K. Medical Research Council; Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Indian Council of Medical Research; and Ovations Chronic Disease Initiative. The partnership is intended as a platform for collaboration of global research funding organizations.

To learn more visit: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/full/450494a.html

Grand challenges in chronic non-communicable diseases. Daar AS, Singer PA, Persad DL, Pramming SK, Matthews DR, Beaglehole R, Bernstein A, Borysiewicz LK, Colagiuri S, Ganguly N, Glass RI, Finegood DT, Koplan J, Nabel EG, Sarna G, Sarrafzadegan N, Smith R, Yach D, and Bell J. Nature 450, 494-496 (22 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/450494