NCDs

A non-communicable disease (NCD) is a medical condition or disease that is non-infectious and non-transmissible among people. NCDs are the leading causes of death and disease burden worldwide. The major NCDs are cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes with 17 million, 7.6 million, 4.2 million and 1.3 deaths respectively. NCDs result in more than 30 million deaths annually. NCDs are now the leading causes of death in most low-income and middle-income countries. NCD burden is increasing more rapidly in lower income countries and populations. Most public health actions have targeted modifiable risk factors to reduce the burden of NCDs. Current public health actions stress the importance of preventing, detecting, and correcting modifiable risk factors; controlling major modifiable risk factors has been shown to effectively reduce NCD mortality. Treating major modifiable risk factors has proven to be effective in reducing mortality from NCDs. The current status and trends in major modifiable risk factors reinforce the importance of prevention, detection, and treatment of risk factors in reducing the burden of NCDs on individuals and society.

Germs, Governance, and global public health in the wake of SARS

Governance is how societies structure respond to the challenges they face.  EID’s is re-emerging Infectious Disease where national and international societies are confronting increased microbial threats. The world’s faces successive perfect microbial storms.  Germ governance concerns how societies, both within and beyond national borders, structure their responses to pathogenic challenges. The global nature of the microbial threat requires that governance address the borderless challenges presented by infectious diseases.

Horizontal and Vertical Germ governance

Horizontal germ governance concentrate on states as the dominant actors, focused on threats that complicated trade and travel between states, and utilized international law to structure cooperation on public health problems. Conceptualize infectious diseases as exogenous threats to a state’s national interests that could only be mitigated through international cooperation. Vertical germ governance conceptualize infectious diseases as threats within states rather than as exogenous threats to a state’s interest and power. The objective is not to manage germ traffic between states but to reduce disease threats within states.