Emerging global mandate to save 36 million lives from NCDs

According to The Lancet, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mainly heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory disease, are responsible for two out of every three deaths worldwide and the toll is rising. A landmark global alliance between leading...

Coordinated civil society input is vital for UN Summit on NCDs

A civil society movement is growing in lead up to the United Nations (UN) Summit on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), said the Chairperson of NCD Alliance Ann Keeling, who was speaking at the WHO-wide Planning Meeting for the UN High level Meeting on NCDs in Washington DC,...

2010 was year of the lung: Lung health needs attention

The year 2010 was declared as year of the lung recognizing that hundreds of millions of people around the world suffer each year from treatable and preventable chronic respiratory diseases. This initiative acknowledged that lung health has long been neglected in public...

Will access to essential asthma medicines be on NCD Summit agenda

Asthma is the most common chronic disease. Since 2000, some areas of public health, such as tuberculosis (TB), have gone from being deprived of resources for decades to having significant amounts of funding. While important gaps remain, this “dream come true” has also...

Asthma sufferers in the US will continue to suffer

I have had asthma for over 10 years. At the onset of this horrible disease, I was spending every weekend in the hospital ER receiving steroids via a needle in my butt. This went on for several months. The doctors didn't actively try to find a preventative medication for me...

GPS-equipped inhalers track the 'no-go' places for asthmatics

How about an iPhone app that tells you where NOT to go if you suffer from asthma? An entrepreneur and scientist David Van Sickle from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is using the GPS technology on medical inhalers to track when the drug dispensers are being used by his...