Ann Trop Med Parasit
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Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) account for almost 60% of global mortality, and 80% of deaths from NCD occur in low- and middle-income countries. One quarter of these deaths--almost 9 million in 2005--are in men and women aged <60 years. Taken together, NCD represent globally the single largest cause of mortality in people of working age, and their incidences in younger adults are substantially higher in the poor countries of the world than in the rich. ⋯ Achieving these gains will require a broad range of integrated, population-based interventions as well as measures focused on the individuals at high risk. At present, the international-assistance community provides scant resources for the control of NCD in poor countries, partly, at least, because NCD continue to be wrongly perceived as predominantly diseases of the better off. As urbanization continues apace and populations age, investment in the prevention and control of NCD in low-and middle-income countries can no longer be ignored.
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Ann Trop Med Parasit · Jul 2006
ReviewMeasuring the global burden of disease and epidemiological transitions: 2002-2030.
Any planning process for health development ought to be based on a thorough understanding of the health needs of the population. This should be sufficiently comprehensive to include the causes of premature death and of disability, as well as the major risk factors that underlie disease and injury. To be truly useful to inform health-policy debates, such an assessment is needed across a large number of diseases, injuries and risk factors, in order to guide prioritization. ⋯ The leading causes of DALY, on the other hand, include causes that are common at young ages [perinatal conditions (7.1% of global DALY), lower respiratory infections (6.7%), and diarrhoeal diseases (4.7%)] as well as depression (4.1%). Ischaemic heart disease and stroke rank sixth and seventh, retrospectively, as causes of global disease burden, followed by road traffic accidents, malaria and tuberculosis. Projections to 2030 indicate that, although these major vascular diseases will remain leading causes of global disease burden, with HIV/AIDS the leading cause, diarrhoeal diseases and lower respiratory infections will be outranked by COPD, in part reflecting the projected increases in death and disability from tobacco use.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease of antiquity, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which principally affects the lungs. It is a major public-health problem, with around 9 million new cases and 2 million deaths estimated to occur each year. Patients with pulmonary TB whose sputum is smear-positive for M. tuberculosis form the main source of infection in communities. ⋯ This failure is, in turn, making the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals for TB--to ensure that the incidence of TB is falling by 2015 and to halve the prevalence of TB and the annual number of TB-attributable deaths between 1990 and 2015--less likely. To improve the performance and impact of TB-control programmes, in the face of HIV co-infection and other constraints on DOTS, the World Health Organization has launched the revised 'Stop TB Strategy'. The new strategy, to be implemented via the Global Plan to Stop TB (2006-2015), includes intensified TB-case finding, treatment of latent TB infection with isoniazid, prevention of HIV infection, cotrimoxazole preventive therapy, and antiretroviral therapy.