What a wonderful couple of weeks it has been since the UN summit. Lots of momentum and dialogue on NCDs.
1. First, we were most impressed with the leadership and swift and decisive action taken by the Indian government with their announcement about 26 interventions to tackle NCDs. According to the Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-will-roll-out-worlds-largest-drive-against-NCDs/articleshow/10212828.cms, this is the world’s largest NCD drive. We congratulate India on a comprehensive strategy on NCD prevention and for taking concrete action steps. People and governments around the world have noticed and are talking about India’s leadership in NCDs.
2. We are also hugely impressed with the U.S. government’s sweeping action to tackle the single biggest contributor to NCDs – smoking. The mobile health recommendations, the library of smoking cessation messages they have planned and the workplace smoking cessation effort announced are extraordinary and should be leveraged by countries and companies around the world.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/09/20110919a.html
3. Many authoritative opinion pieces on the outcomes of the UN summit caught our eye and we wanted to bring a couple to your attention. We agree with the views of these public health stalwarts.
http://the-scientist.com/2011/10/04/opinion-a-new-global-health-agenda/
4. We also greatly enjoyed the CSIS panel discussion on the UN summit and beyond. Good perspectives and questions. http://smartglobalhealth.org/page/s/outcomes-of-the-un-high-level-meeting-on-noncommunicable-diseases
5. One pretty amazing blog post by Sanjay Basu about the world’s population getting fatter gave us a lot of food for thought. Especially the point that obesity has overtaken tobacco as the most preventable cause of NCDs in many parts of the world. And that middle aged women, 40 -60 years old, are the most affected – from the US to Tonga.
http://www.globalhealthhub.org/2011/10/01/obesity/
This piece helped us renew our resolve at Arogya World to continue to build Women for a Healthy Future and demand a healthy future for women and children.
6. We also were intrigued to learn that less than 1% of the US budget is spent on foreign aid, and do agree with all the advocates, famous and otherwise, who opined that this indeed has done a lot of good – from improving health and saving lives to building stronger economies and protecting our borders. http://www.fhi360.org/en/News/res_OnePercent.htm
All in all an extraordinary few weeks. We told you global health as we know it would change, didn’t we?
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