Report on the status of major health risk factors for noncommunicable diseases:WHO African Region, 2015
The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases 2010 projects that noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) will be responsible for over 44 million deaths during the next decade, representing an increase of about 15% since 2010. Most of these deaths will occur in the WHO regions of Africa, South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. In the African Region alone, NCDs will cause around 3.9 million deaths by 2020.
Most NCD related deaths are attributable to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory diseases, resulting from eight behavioural and physiological risk factors: tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, consumption of unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, raised blood glucose, and raised total cholesterol.
Member States of the African Region are accelerating efforts to contain the growing pandemic of NCDs and their related risk factors and social determinants across the Region. Based on this global action plan, many countries have developed, or are preparing, national intersectoral action plans on NCD prevention and control.
This report is based mainly on the findings of STEPwise surveys conducted since 2003, which provide prevalence data on the above risk factors for NCDs in implementing countries. Supplementary information was provided from the global school-based student health survey (GSHS) – a collaborative effort of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and WHO.
