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.
NCDs are also the leading causes of death in all regions except Africa. But Africa, according to WHO projections, is also the region that will see the largest increases in deaths due to NCDs by 2020. And by 2030, the number of deaths from NCDs in the region is expected to exceed deaths from communicable and nutritional diseases as well as maternal and perinatal deaths.