GACD on Capitol Hill

“No country is big enough to face the NCD (non-communicable diseases’) challenge on its own. We need a critical mass and international co-operation therefore is not an option, but a must.“

That is according to Karim Berkouk from the Research and Innovation Directorate General at the European Commission, one of the GACD’s Board members.

These and other views about the global challenge of working internationally against NCDs were aired at a GACD sponsored event, “A conversation with Ambassador Eric Goosby,” on Washington’s Capitol Hill.

Ambassador Goosby, US Global Aids Coordinator and head of the State Department’s Office of Global Health Diplomacy, mentioned lessons learnt from HIV/Aids frameworks that have been used successfully in resource poor settings. “These frameworks are already being used to address the growing NCD epidemic in many low- and middle-income countries, for example in the area of hypertension screening.”

Delivery systems that have been put in place for infectious diseases and HIV/Aids can now provide healthcare services, which relate to chronic disease care.

Yet for the NCD community of policy makers and global health practitioners to work together successfully to tackle the rising NCD disease burden, medical delivery systems need to be put in place that cross cultural divides and successful global interventions need to be shared.

To those ends global health diplomacy is key to clarifying the crisis. According to GACD Board member Alain Beaudet, the divide between high- and low-income countries is no longer separating health patterns. “Global health used to be perceived as unidirectional and mainly addressing infectious diseases, but that has changed dramatically. Global health is now truly global, with many of the health issues traditionally facing the high-income countries now facing developing countries because of changing migration patterns and climate change. At the same time, many developing countries are now experiencing the growing chronic disease burden, which for a long time has been perceived as a problem specific to high-income countries.”

NCDs such as heart and lung disease, some cancers, diabetes and mental illnesses, which traditionally face the economically developed countries are now an even bigger problem in low- and middle-income countries.

In Australia, according to Warwick Anderson, CEO of Australia’s public medical research funding agency NHMRC, chronic diseases are now becoming a legacy issue for the Aboriginal population in Australia, with many suffering a chronic disease from birth.

The specific focus of the GACD on implementation science is crucial as the research is trying to find policy solutions, which allow the research to have a direct impact on patient care.

According to the WHO, NCDs kill more than 36 million people each year. Nearly 80% of those deaths occur in low- and middle- income countries.

This shift in disease burden was recognised at the recent World Health Assembly in Geneva when the World Health Organisation’s 2014-15 budget proposed a 20% increase in funding for NCDs.

The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases’ members fund NCD research in low- and middle-income countries.