Responding to noncommunicable diseases during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: policy brief

Responding to NCDs during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic describes why strong action on NCDs must be an integral part of the COVID-19 response, recovery and building back better and steps that should be taken immediately and in the longer term.

Responding to non-communicable diseases during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Geneva: World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Programme, 2020 (WHO/2019-nCoV/Non-communicable_diseases/Policy_brief/2020.1). Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Non-communicable_diseases-Policy_brief-2020.1

Before COVID-19, the world was already off track to achieve many of the targets in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including that to reduce premature mortality from NCDs. The pandemic is making achievement of the SDGs even more challenging. COVID-19 is expected to trigger the greatest global recession since the Second World War, huge losses of jobs and income, food crises and mass impoverishment.
Global human development – a combined measure of health, education and income – is projected to reverse for the first time in 30 years. As NCDs worsen the pandemic and its wide-ranging impacts, they must be considered a major issue in the response, recovery and building back better to restore and drive progress in achieving the SDGs. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Agenda and the pledge to leave no one behind must continue to be the overarching approach for integrated action on NCDs.