When I saw the article from Huffington Post entitled Noncommunicable Disease, I first had to ponder what that may be. I thought of cancer, and after reading I understand that a lot of disease plaguing the world is non-passing. Cancer along with diabetes and cardiovascular disease are the leading cause of death in developing and poor countries. What struck my attention as a reader was that the article mentioned that eight million deaths before the age of sixty were reported from these diseases. The statistics in the story were not given with a comparison, so I did a little research and found according to the American Cancer Society the U.S. had 580,000 deaths from all types of cancers in 2013. With the United States being a wealthier country with a good amount of money invested in healthcare the numbers would obviously be lower in mortality than those of poor nations. However, the amount of money taken from the global health budget for NCD's was a measly ten million. That is ten million taken from a budget of eight billion. The story brings up in African countries many females are prone to contracting cervical cancer, a cancer that can vaccinated against. The problem is they don't have the vaccinations, or the money. The author suggests adding a screening for this disease at the various HIV clinics across Africa, and by doing so killed two diseases with one clinic. The rate of fatality in more poverty stricken countries is not going to one day equal that of rich nations without the rapid development, but what is possible is continue to create smarter, more effective treatments and prevention's to these diseases so people can have the chance to beat the disease, and therefore more lives will be saved.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ambassador-nancy-g-brinker/noncommunicable-disease-a_b_6608446.html
Alex Rogers, 7:42 pm, 2/5/15
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