New Delhi (NVI): The World Health Organization (WHO) informed that heart disease which has remained the leading cause of death at the global level for the last 20 years, it is now killing more people than ever before.
According to WHO’s 2019 Global Health Estimates report, “Noncommunicable diseases (NCD) now make up seven of the world’s top ten causes of death, an increase from four of the ten leading causes in 2000. The new data cover the period from 2000 to 2019 inclusive.”
WHO in a statement said the figures clearly highlight the need for an intensified global focus on preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease, as well as tackling injuries.
“Heart disease has remained the leading cause of death at the global level for the last 20 years. However, it is now killing more people than ever before,” WHO said in a statement
It added that this has taken nine million lives in 2019 — increased by more than two million since 2000.
Heart disease now represents 16 per cent of total deaths from all causes. More than half of the two million additional deaths were in the WHO Western Pacific region, the UN agency said.
The report further stated, more people are dying from Alzheimer’s and it is now the sixth leading cause of death globally, killing 1.6m people in 2019 compared to 584,000 people in 2000, when it was number 20 on the list.
“These new estimates are another reminder that we need to rapidly step up prevention, diagnosis and treatment of noncommunicable diseases,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO.
“They highlight the urgency of drastically improving primary health care equitably and holistically. Strong primary health care is clearly the foundation on which everything rests, from combatting noncommunicable diseases to managing a global pandemic,” he added.
WHO further said that, the seven diseases highlighted in the report accounted for 24.4 million deaths, or 44 per cent of all deaths globally, in 2019.
“After heart disease, which killed nearly 9 million people in 2019, strokes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were the second and third leading causes of deaths from noncommunicable disease. Trachea, bronchus and lung cancers, and kidney disease, were also on the rise,” the UN agency said.
The report also showed that people living in a low income country are more likely to die of a communicable disease than a non-communicable one, with neonatal conditions the leading cause of death. But infectious and diarrhoeal diseases are killing fewer people than 20 years ago.
-RJV
