Commonwealth Health Ministers to Discuss Lifestyle Diseases at Geneva Meeting
9 May 2007
Lifestyle diseases like, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and chronic pulmonary disease are challenging health systems in both developing and developed countries.
On 13 May 2007, Health Ministers from the 53-member Commonwealth, Non-Governmental Organisations and other partners will meet in Geneva to discuss the challenges posed by these diseases and the approaches that member countries can take to tackle them.
The health ministers will use the one day meeting to examine integrated approaches to health, sport and physical activity; as well as the impact of dietary changes on lifestyle diseases. They will also look at best practices in the prevention and management of such diseases.
According to Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon who will open the meeting, “Lifestyle diseases have been sweeping the entire globe, with an increasing trend in developing countries where dealing with the double burden of infectious and non- infectious diseases is placing even more demands on already weakened health systems.”
Citing the common misconception that lifestyle diseases apply only to ‘the rich world,’ Mr McKinnon has said the growing burden of non-communicable diseases in poor countries and poor populations has been neglected by policy makers, major multilateral and bilateral donors as well as academics.
Mr McKinnon has also stressed the importance of the Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting as a Forum. “In 1998 it was the first to bring global attention to the impact on health systems caused by the loss of health workers. By 2003, it had adopted a Commonwealth Code of Practice which may now become the basis for an international code currently under discussion in the Global Health Workforce Alliance,” he said.
Reviewing Commonwealth successes in the near-eradication of polio, wider anti-retroviral therapy and education programmes on maternal health, Mr McKinnon has called for renewed efforts in the face of three health-related Millennium Development Goals - on reducing child and maternal mortality, and reversing the spread of AIDS and malaria in particular- whose target dates seem to be slipping by at least a decade.
Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith and Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, will be attending the meeting while the keynote address will be delivered by Senior Adviser on Cardiovascular Diseases at the World Health Organisation, Dr Shanthi Mendis. The Minister of Health for Zambia, the Hon Minister Brig Gen Dr Brian Chituwo will chair the meeting.
The Commonwealth Health Ministers are expected to issue a statement to be presented to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Uganda from 23 to 25 November 2007.
Note to editors:
The World Health Organisation estimates that 70 per cent of cancer deaths, 80 per cent of cardio-vascular fatalities and 80 per cent of deaths due to diabetes happen in the developing world. In 2005, lifestyle diseases were also responsible for 60 percent of global deaths.
For media enquiries, please contact Yvonne Chin, Communications Officer on +44 (0) 20-7747-6514 or 079-4947-9687, or via email: y.chin@commonwealth.int
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