Chronic Diseases: What's the smartest SDG target?

People often assume that infectious diseases like diarrhea, tuberculosis, AIDS, malaria and ebola are the biggest threats in the developing world. That is no longer true. 

For the first time in history, more people in the developing world are dying from strokes and heart attacks than infectious diseases. Combined, these non-communicable diseases or NCDs – cause almost two-thirds of all deaths in the developing world, about 23 million each year.

The good news is that there are tremendous ways to help, which could avoid up to five million premature (before age 70) deaths each year.

As reported in The Guardian, raising tobacco prices through taxation is one such intervention. There is good international evidence to show that increasing prices by 125% would cut consumption in half and save 2.5m lives per year.  Every dollar spent would give benefits valued at $22 and it would raise $2.5bn in revenue to spend on other health measures.

About a billion people, including 45% of African adults, suffer from high blood pressure, causing 9 million deaths per year. Fortunately, the cost of diagnosis and cheap hypertension medication for medium and high-risk patients would only be $500 million, or about $2.50 per person annually. This would avoid 770,000 premature deaths each year and every dollar invested would do $47 of good.

Additionally, one of the simplest ways to reduce high blood pressure is to lower salt intake. Reducing salt intake by 30% is reckoned to avoid 815,000 premature deaths. It would also be a great use of resources, paying back $39 for every dollar spent. 

You can read the entire paper here and download the one page PDF here.