noncommunicable diseases

The primary goal of the guideline is to improve the quality of care and the outcome in people with type 2 diabetes in low-resource settings. It recommends a set of basic interventions to integrate management of diabetes into primary health care. It will serve as basis for development of simple algorithms for use by health care staff in primary care in low-resource settings, to reduce the risk of acute and chronic complications of diabetes. The guideline was developed by a group of external and WHO experts, following the WHO process of guideline development. GRADE methodology was used to assess the quality of evidence and decide the strength of the recommendations.

World Health Statistics 2012 contains WHO’s annual compilation of health-related data for its 194 Member States, and includes a summary of the progress made towards achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated targets.

This year, it also includes highlight summaries on the topics of noncommunicable diseases, universal health coverage and civil registration coverage.

he report features information about the noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) situation in 193 countries. This includes details of what proportion of each country's deaths are due to diseases such as cancer, heart and lung diseases, and diabetes.

Using graphs, on a page-per country presentation format, the report provides information on prevalence, trends in metabolic risk factors (cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index and blood sugar) alongside data on the country's capacity to address the challenges posed by NCDs. Countries will be able to benchmark progress to date and determine where more efforts are needed.

Many countries with a high burden of HIV infection also face burgeoning epidemics of noncommunicable diseases. Similar to HIV, noncommunicable diseases are most frequent in low- and middle-income countries, and the age-adjusted death rates from noncommunicable diseases are nearly twice as high in low- and middle-income countries as in high-income countries. People living with HIV often also have high rates of noncommunicable diseases. With HIV programmes rapidly expanding, people with HIV are living longer and ageing, and are developing non-HIV-related chronic conditions similar to the rest of the population.