gwen's blog

On 27 September, the United Nations General Assembly is staging the third High-level Meeting on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which will undertake a comprehensive review of progress achieved in protecting people from dying too young from NCDs.

 

In Bangladesh, it is estimated that about half of the roughly 6 million pregnancies each year are unplanned, and nearly 25% are unwanted.

 

From May 30-June 6, 1,000 young leaders from more than 100 countries met in Singapore for the second UNLEASH Innovation Lab. Selected for their passion, intelligence, and creativity, they were tasked with finding innovative solutions to some of the world’s most intractable problems. 

 

More than 60% of adults in Egypt are overweight, and half of those qualify as obese. In Myanmar, the highest rate of death for those 15-29 is roadside accidents. In the Philippines, more than 7 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B, resulting in an astonishingly high cancer rate. In many parts of India, young women lack opportunities and lack safe spaces for exercise.

 

An unprecedented 66 million people worldwide have been forced from their homes - the highest levels of displacement on record, according to the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). An estimated four million of them have diabetes. 

 

On a busy Monday morning, patients fill the tidy white-tiled halls of the Andijan Regional Endocrinological Dispensary, waiting for services. Clinicians in the diabetes eye and foot clinics are seeing patients, while down the hall, ’diabetes school’ is in session. In the gynaecological clinic, new standards for diagnosing gestational diabetes are taped to the desk, and anew GDM patient screening card recording the blood sugar levels of expectant mothers is quickly filling up.

 

West and Central African government officials, civil society representatives and healthcare experts met in Cameroon recently to address a growing threat to the region: diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

 

On April 23 - 25, 2018 in Kingston, Jamaica, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), supported by the World Diabetes Foundation and Sagicor Life, hosted the Caribbean NCD Forum: Supporting national and regional advocacy in the Caribbean in the lead up to the 3rd UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs.