Fighting NCDs in the post-2015 world

Often viewed as a problem largely limited to developed countries, noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes claim more lives in low- and middle-income countries than in richer nations.

Of the 38 million deaths from NCDs that the World Health Organization recorded in 2012, 10.9 million came from the western Pacific, where several small island countries already have overstretched health budgets. According to an NCD road map report prepared for the Joint Forum Economic and Pacific Health Ministers’ Meeting earlier this year, NCD-related causes accounted for 70 to 75 percent of all deaths in Pacific island countries.