AT least two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ministers of Health are now in Moscow, Russia, participating in three major global health events on the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), as the Community steps up its preparation for the United Nations (UN) High Level Meeting on Chronic Disease prevention set for New York, USA on September 19-20, this year. Guyana’s Minister of Health Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, and his Barbadian colleague Mr. Donville Innis, as well as regional officials are among the more than 100 Health Ministers and other government representatives who have gathered at the World Trade Centre in Moscow to participate in the staging of the first World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Forum titled Addressing the challenge of Non-Communicable Diseases.

According to the Caricom Secretariat in Georgetown, they attended Wednesday’s launch of the first WHO Global Status Report on NCDs, as well as the staging of the first two-day Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-Communicable Disease Control, which opened yesterday morning.

The Report, which provides global, regional and country-specific statistics, on NCDs, cites NCDs as the leading causes of death in the world and notes that 36.1 million people died in 2008 from conditions such as heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancers and diabetes. Nearly 80 per cent of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the Report, millions of deaths can be prevented by stronger implementation of existing measures such as stronger anti-tobacco controls and promoting healthier diets, physical activity and reducing the harmful use of alcohol.

The Report also recommends raising taxes on tobacco, banning tobacco advertising and legislating to curb smoking in public places. Other measures include reducing the levels of salt in foods and stopping the inappropriate marketing of unhealthy food and non-alcoholic beverages to children.

These recommendations are in sync with CARICOM’s advocacy against NCDs and are implicit in the 15-point actions of the Port-of-Spain Declaration – Uniting to Stop Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases – to which CARICOM Heads of Government had committed since September 15, 2007 and which is now being implemented in the Caribbean.

It is the promotion of this Declaration among other lobby efforts which has secured for the Caribbean a victory in getting the United Nations to pass a resolution to hold a high level meeting on NCDS.

These Moscow meetings are critical to the fine-tuning of the final Outcome Document for the September UN High Level Meeting and CARICOM is making sure that this Region’s priorities as they relate to NCDs are included in that document.
The First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non-Communicable Disease Control will be the major platform on which CARICOM Health Ministers will discuss the drivers of and responses to the NCDs epidemic within the Caribbean. The outcomes of this important meeting will form the basis of the Moscow Declaration on NCDs.
At the meeting of Health Ministers at the 21st CARICOM Council on Human and Social Development (COHSOD), held in Guyana earlier this Month, Chairman of the COHSOD, Dr Ramsammy applauded the UN for its decision to host the high level meeting and credited CARICOM for its “bold leadership” in forcing “the world to stop and take action on the pressing health problem of NDCs.”

At that meeting, Dr Ramsammy also reminded his audience that the Region was the first in the Americas to convene a landmark Heads of Government Summit to address the issue of NCDS.

He explained that now that the UN had declared its Resolution to hold a High Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Chronic Non-Communicable Disease, the Region should take credit for its lobbying efforts leading up to that Resolution.