This roadmap aims to facilitate progress towards the 2030 targets, and was adopted in September 2022 at the Seventy-fifth Session of the WHO Regional Committee. It includes three strategic directions, applicable to all Member States, as well as an interactive tool designed to help countries accelerate context-specific actions. It aims to increase collection and analysis of high-quality data, and to thereby strengthen impact and accountability. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are among the world’s greatest threats to health and development. The four major NCDs – cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes – kill an estimated 41 million people globally every year, more than a third of them prematurely, in people’s prime productive years. In the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region, NCDs cause an estimated 9 million deaths annually, almost half of them premature. Every year, almost 100 million people globally are pushed into extreme poverty due to out-of-pocket health spending, and the costs of treating NCDs are a major contributor.
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