Noncommunicable Diseases Need Increased Funding, Attention.

Dr. Christine Ngaruiya, a faculty member in Global Health and International Emergency Medicine at Yale and a Public Voices fellow with the OpEd Project, writes in The Hill (10/13) “Congress Blog” that noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer “are the leading cause of death worldwide.” However, it is infectious or communicable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria that “have dominated the attention of policy makers, funders, public health practitioners and the general public alike, for the last few decades.” Ngaruiya says “the burden of NCDs cannot be ignored” and calls for new policies, training and awareness to combat them. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/256697-silent-killers-pandemic-of-the-21st-century