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Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to NCDs

A new WHO report shows that the world’s poorest countries can gain US$350 billion by 2030 by scaling up investments in preventing and treating chronic diseases, like heart disease and cancer, that cost an additional US$1.27 per person annually. Such actions would save more than 8 million lives over the same period. The report, titled Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to NCDs, reveals, for the first time, the financing needs and returns on investment of WHO’s cost-effective and feasible “best buy” policies to protect people from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the world’s leading causes of ill health and death. It shows that for every US$1 invested in scaling up actions to address NCDs in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), there will be a return to society of at least US$7 in increased employment, productivity and longer life.