Claudine Manizabayo was suffering from shortness of breath and a cough. At first, doctors mistook her symptoms for asthma. Then a clinical team specializing in non-communicable diseases examined her and came back with a different diagnosis--heart failure. In affluent countries like the United States, the symptoms and the diagnosis are feared and familiar among the elderly and people with coronary artery disease. Claudine is only 18. In poor countries like Rwanda, where she grew up in a family of farm laborers, heart failure often afflicts the young and the destitute.

The transitioning global disease burden now means a world where the majority of mortality is a re

On 23rd December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a UN Modalities Resolution outlining the length, details and agenda of the UN Summit on Non- Communicable Diseases (NCDs), which will take place on 19–20th September 2011 in New York.