WHO: Fighting non-communicable diseases

The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the UN World Health Organization (WHO), aims to reduce preventable deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancers, by 25 percent by 2025. WHO is coordinating negotiations on the surveillance, indicators and voluntary targets that will form an eventual global plan to fight NCDs, and is drafting recommendations to be considered by member governments in October 2012. Read the IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) news here.