Chronic diseases: The global epidemic

"WHO has identified climate change as the greatest health threat of the 21st century. The 2015 Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission found that six of nine planetary boundaries had been breached, including land system change, freshwater depletion, and biodiversity loss, with ocean acidification approaching the boundary. These planetary boundaries interact with climate change and will also pose considerable challenges to health. (...) However, the complex relationships between climate change and NCDs are not widely understood. In this Comment, we explore the synergism between climate change and NCDs and also show how climate change mitigation and adaptation actions can also reduce NCD risks."

• The Lancet

"In a first for healthier diets, WHO has issued a “strong recommendation” that countries tax sugar-sweetened beverages as part of a wider effort to combat the powerful health impacts of the industrial foods industry – whose marketing of sugar, sodium and fat-laced, processed foods is linked with millions of deaths annually. WHO also issued more “conditional” recommendations in favor of the taxation of unhealthy foods and the subsidizing of healthier options, in its new guidelines on “Fiscal Policies to Promote Healthy Diets,” launched Friday. The first-ever WHO recommendations on food pricing policies comes only days after a scathing report by WHO’s European Region, that found unhealthy foods amongst the top four commercial products that cause some 19 million deaths annually worldwide, including 2.7 million deaths in the WHO’s European Region."

• Health Policy Watch

"Eliminating suffering from cancer requires action across all of society: governments, industry, academia, health-care institutions, non-profit organisations, and diverse communities. Everyone in society has a role in contributing to progress against cancer, ranging from adhering to cancer prevention approaches and working in communities to leading large organisations. In this context, women in particular bring unique and essential perspectives to every interaction, at every level of society. The Lancet Commission on women, power, and cancer presents a comprehensive, global view of how the unique difficulties that women face can limit their ability to overcome the challenges that cancer presents, both for themselves and for society overall. The Commission sheds light on important gaps in the oncology workforce, where many capable women are still held back from leadership opportunities due to long-held gender biases, workplace harassment, or lack of support or mentorship."

• The Lancet
• The Lancet Commission

"Africa has one of the highest cancer death rates in the world, yet this could be markedly improved by better access to treatments already widely available in high-income countries for the continent’s biggest killers – breast, cervical, lung and prostate cancers and Kaposi sarcoma. This is according to a recent study by the Botswana-Rutgers Partnership for Health, which researched which cancer treatments that are effective in other regions could have an impact in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) – but are not available or hard to get."

• Health Policy Watch

"Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, and affects people regardless of country, age group, or sex. Using the most recent evidentiary and analytical framework from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD), we produced location-specific, age-specific, and sex-specific estimates of diabetes prevalence and burden from 1990 to 2021, the proportion of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in 2021, the proportion of the type 2 diabetes burden attributable to selected risk factors, and projections of diabetes prevalence through 2050."

• The Lancet

"Around a quarter of the population in Switzerland suffers from chronic diseases. These are some of the most frequent causes of death and cause physical and mental stress as well as high health care costs. Swiss TPH has extensive expertise in long-term studies involving biobanks that conduct research into chronic diseases and the impact of behavioural and environmental factors. Samples stored in biobanks and linked to the health data of the sample donors supply the evidence for successful prevention and health promotion. They also help us to understand the long-term health impacts of air pollution, heatwaves, traffic noise or chemicals. Swiss TPH is therefore making an important contribution to health monitoring in collaboration with other research institutions. In addition, biobanks are also the bedrock of medical progress in the early detection and diagnosis of chronic diseases, especially in cooperation with private companies."

• Swiss TPH

"In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), urgent action is needed to curb a growing crisis in cancer incidence and mortality. Without rapid interventions, data estimates show a major increase in cancer mortality from 520 348 in 2020 to about 1 million deaths per year by 2030. Here, we detail the state of cancer in SSA, recommend key actions on the basis of analysis, and highlight case studies and successful models that can be emulated, adapted, or improved across the region to reduce the growing cancer crises. Recommended actions begin with the need to develop or update national cancer control plans in each country. Plans must include childhood cancer plans, managing comorbidities such as HIV and malnutrition, a reliable and predictable supply of medication, and the provision of psychosocial, supportive, and palliative care."

• The Lancet Oncology

"Mexico has implemented black STOP-style signs on unhealthy foods to combat the country’s rampant obesity trend. However, the project was met with fierce resistance from multinational companies and their host states. At the forefront: Nestlé and Switzerland. Documents and e-mail exchanges show how willingly the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs jumped in to defend the food giant’s commercial interests against Mexico’s health policy. According to exclusive market data obtained by Public Eye, the business at stake for Nestlé was worth more than one billion Swiss francs. The research also shows that Switzerland’s intervention in Mexico is far from being an isolated case."

• Public Eye

"The Lancet Oncology Commission on cancer in sub-Saharan Africa highlights the rapidly escalating cancer burden in this resource-poor area of the world. Long affected by infectious diseases and malnutrition, the population of this region is now increasingly afflicted by non-communicable diseases, including cancer. However, the fragile health systems in the 46 sub-Saharan African nations are poorly equipped to tackle this looming health crisis, with many problems including incomplete cancer data registries, poor availability of and access to screening, diagnostics, and treatment, insufficient provision of palliative care, and a huge shortfall of trained medical personnel compounding the deteriorating situation. In this Commission, the authors describe these challenges in detail, and propose actions that must be taken urgently to address the escalating catastrophe. Ultimately, political will and effective collaboration between multiple stakeholders is needed to reach the achievable goal of improved cancer care in sub-Saharan Africa."

• The Lancet

"Non-governmental organizations play a vital part in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations. These Goals also include targets related to noncommunicable diseases. However, non-governmental organizations have played a limited role in this area despite such diseases causing the bulk of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Through their activities, non-governmental organizations should aim to strengthen health systems, yet they often only support these for a single disease. Mali, like many other low- and middle-income countries, is facing an increasing burden of diabetes and a health system not adapted to address this challenge. Santé Diabète, a non-governmental organization based in Mali since 2003, has been working specifically on diabetes, and has developed a wide range of activities to improve the national health system."

• Global Health Action
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"The upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA) has the biggest focus on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in a decade – and offers an opportunity to ensure that NCDs are integrated into future responses to pandemics and other health emergencies. This is according to Katie Dain, CEO of the NCD Alliance, who urged attendees at a high-level NCD briefing before the WHA on 22 May, to highlight solutions in order to encourage countries that it is possible to address NCDs. This comes in the wake of statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) NCD Progress Monitor 2022 that show COVID-19 has pushed back countries’ gains against cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes in particular."

• WHA Offers Opportunity to Integrate NCDs into Pandemic Responses - Health Policy Watch
• NCDs Finally Get Attention at Presidential Level - HPW

"Geneva, 12 November 2021 – A new report published by WHO in the lead-up to World Diabetes Day highlights the alarming state of global access to insulin and diabetes care, and finds that high prices, low availability of human insulin, few producers dominating the insulin market and weak health systems are the main barriers to universal access."

• World Health Organization - Report
• WHO Press Release
• Med in CH #31 Mai 2021 von Thomas Vogel

"For the first time, a World Health Organization committee has recommended the global agency form a working group to explore policies for contending with the high prices of medicines that are considered essential, but unaffordable in many low and middle-income countries. The suggestion was made in the latest report about treatments to be added to the WHO list of essential medicines. The list, which is updated every two years, contains the most effective, safe and cost‐effective drugs for treating high-priority illnesses and running a functioning health care system. For this reason, the list is influential because many countries consult the list for determining reimbursement."

• STAT News

"Insulin was discovered 100 years ago but, sadly, across the globe there are significant inequities in access to this life-saving medicine. Here, the authors investigate such inequities, the challenges of available and affordable insulin, its delivery systems and blood glucose monitoring. Challenges not only include costs but also the lack of expertise in managing diabetes care. Now is the time for those in the diabetes community to come together to address the global issue of access to insulin for all."

• Practical DIABETES
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Many countries are making progress in the fight against tobacco, but a new World Health Organization report shows some are not addressing emerging nicotine and tobacco products and failing to regulate them. (...) For the first time, the 2021 report presents new data on electronic nicotine delivery systems, such as ‘e-cigarettes’. These products are often marketed to children and adolescents by the tobacco and related industries that manufacture them, using thousands of appealing flavours and misleading claims about the products.

• WHO Report

"A draft resolution on expanding prevention and treatment for diabetes now appears set for approval at this week’s World Health Assembly – after a number of European countries, as well as the US, removed their opposition to language mandating the World Health Organization to develop targets for expanded diabetes treatment – as well as measures encouraging greater price transparency in the insulin market."

• Health Policy Watch

"CAPE TOWN – South Africans are consuming fewer sugary drinks since their government introduced a tax on these in 2018 – but powerful multinational food and beverage companies are inhibiting neighbouring countries from following suit, according to research published on Tuesday. South Africa was the first African country to impose a tax of approximately 10% on the sugar in sweetened soft drinks in an attempt to curb rising obesity and related diseases including diabetes and hypertension. Last week, the Lancet published a four-year study that looked at the sugar consumption of 113,000 South African households and found per capita daily sugar consumption dropped from 16.25g before the tax was announced to 10.63g in the year after the tax was implemented."

• Health Policy Watch

"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are increasingly recognized as a significant threat to health and development globally, and United Nations (UN) Member States adopted the Political Declaration of the Third High-level Meeting (HLM) on the prevention and control of NCDs in 2018. The negotiation process for the Declaration included consultations with Member States, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector. With NCD responses facing charges of inadequacy, it is important to scrutinize the governance process behind relevant high-level global decisions and commitments."

• International Journal of Health Policy Management (IJHPM)