Described by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as representing "public health emergency in slow motion”, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have emerged as the biggest threat, causing 60% of all deaths attributable to cardiovascular diseases (heart attacks and strokes), cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases globally. According to the estimates of World Health Organisation, 36 million people die every year from non-communicable diseases, including 9 million people who die too young before the age of 60.
The Global Status Report on NCDs highlights that 90% of people of the world who die too young from these diseases live in developing countries. Developed countries are also at risk. For example, due to NCDs, the Chinese people can expect to live only 66 “healthy years” (years free from disease and disability), ten years less than their average lifetimes based on current trends.
Considering the ever expanding threat of NCDs all over the world, the 65th session of the UN General Assembly in New York recognised and included NCDs as a core development issue requiring urgent actions. In order to galvanise action for addressing the health and development challenges posed by NCDs, the UN General Assembly is going to arrange a High-Level Meeting on the prevention and control of NCDs on September 19-20, 2011.
The secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, describes the summit as “our chance to broker an international commitment that puts NCDs high on the development agenda, where they belong.” The director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr. Margaret Chan describes the event as an opportunity that must be seized, given that NCDs deliver a two-punch blow to economies and development, causing billions of dollars in losses of national income, and pushing millions of people below the poverty line every year.
The objectives enshrined in this UN high-level meeting are: one, growing international awareness that premature deaths from NCDs reduces productivity, curtails economic growth, and poses a significant social challenge in most countries; and two, the now unequivocal evidence that “best buy” interventions to reduce the toll of premature deaths due to NCDs are workable solutions and that they are excellent economic investments, including in the poorest countries.
These include: a) Decrease alcohol and tobacco use; b) Reduce salt intake and salt content of food; c) Replace trans-fat in food with polyunsaturated fat; d) Promote public awareness about diet and physical activity; e) Provide counseling and multi-drug therapy for people at risk of heart attacks and strokes, including people with diabetes; f) Treat acute heart attacks with aspirin; g) Immunize against Hepatitis B; and h) Screen for and treat pre-cancerous lesions to prevent cervical cancer.
In addition to two above mentioned concerns, the objective of the meeting is to enable countries to adopt an action-oriented outcome document that will shape global agendas for generations to come. Launching ‘100 days to actions’ campaign as a preparation for the UN High Level Meeting, the NCD Alliance has released its Human Rights Brief, which outlines 10 recommendations for inclusion in the outcome document. It proposes that the outcome document must:
1. Reaffirm the human right to health and commit to bold targets for the treatment and prevention of NCDs.
2. Recognize that the role of human rights law and international human rights standards are essential in order to reduce the impact of NCDs.
3. Resolve to integrate the promotion and protection of human rights into national NCD policies, with particular attention being paid to women, children, young and old people, migrants, people with mental and physical disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.
4. Recognise that access to safe, effective, affordable, quality-assured medicines and technologies in the context of the NCDs epidemic are fundamental to the full realisation of the right of everyone to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
5. Recognise that initiatives to address NCDs should contribute to the capacities of ‘duty-bearers’ to meet their obligations and/or of ‘rights-holders’ to claim their rights, which involves education and the engagement of civil society in the political process.
6. Realise that the social determinants of health are intricately related to human rights issues; that they do not exist in isolation to one another; and that human rights principles will aid and abet the improvements of social determinants.
7. Resolve that human rights should guide our response to NCDs. Human rights standards relevant to NCDs need to be further developed in the pursuit of MDGs.
8. Organise briefings on NCDs and human rights for the relevant treaty body committees and Special Rapporteurs via the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
9. The OHCHR Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Health should undertake a special report and present influential annual reports on NCDs and Human Rights to the Human Rights Council and General Assembly.
10. Civil society organisations should write ‘Charters of Rights’, which address the rights and responsibilities of people with NCDs.
The success to reaching an international declaration of global leaders through this UN HLM does not only depend on NCD Alliance’s global movement to put NCD on global agenda. It also depends on the active role to be played by civil society organisations of the member states.
Therefore, this UN High-Level Summit on NCDs is undoubtedly a historic opportunity for the representatives from civil society organizations, the private sector and national states to come up with a new ray of hope in order to make a world free from NCDs.
As Secretary General of the United Nations mentions- “The knowledge and technology to fight the onset and effects of non-communicable diseases already exist. It’s time to act to save future generations from the health and socio-economic harm of such diseases.”
Md. Koushik Ahmed works as Senior Assistant Coordinator at Eminence.
Umma Habiba teaches at English Department, Stamford University Bangladesh.