This year’s observance of World No Tobacco Day falls in the midst of preparations for September’s United Nations high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases. By controlling tobacco, we can go a long way towards addressing many of these chronic ailments, including cancer and heart disease. The use of tobacco, which is highly addictive, killed approximately 100 million people in the twentieth century, and unless we act, it could kill up to a billion in this century.

GENEVA, 13 May 2011 -- An increasing number of countries are facing a double burden of disease as the prevalence of risk factors for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancers increase and many countries still struggle to reduce maternal and child deaths caused by infectious diseases, for the Millennium Development Goals, according to the World Health Statistics 2011 released by the World Health Organization (WHO) today.

Moscow - Noncommunicable diseases are the leading killer today and are on the increase, the first WHO Global status report on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) launched today confirms. In 2008, 36.1 million people died from conditions such as heart disease, strokes, chronic lung diseases, cancers and diabetes. Nearly 80% of these deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. Noncommunicable diseases a two-punch blow to development