Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and respiratory diseases and other non-communicable diseases (diseases which are not infectious) caused by these and other factors lead to more deaths than other causes of death in the world.
 
In its report on non communicable diseases (NCD), the World Health Organisation (WHO) mentioned that in the south-east Asia region, nearly 8.5 million deaths occurred due to non-communicable diseases in 2012.  NCD deaths have increased the most in the region from 6.7 million in 2000.

In India, 62.2 per cent males and 52.2 per cent females die due to non-communicable diseases, as per the report.

View full report here apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/148114/1/9789241564854_eng.pdf

While the annual number of deaths due to infectious disease is projected to decline, the total annual number of NCD deaths is projected to increase to 52 million by 2030.

Nearly 38 million of the world’s 56 million deaths in 2012 were due to NCD. This accounts for 68 per cent of the total deaths in the world. Most of the countries suffering because of this are low and middle-income countries.
 
 

 Troubling facts
 

• The leading causes of NCD deaths in 2012 were: cardiovascular diseases  (46.2 per cent of NCD deaths), cancers (21.7 per cent of  NCD deaths), respiratory diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (10.7 per cent of NCD deaths) and diabetes (4 per cent of NCD deaths)
   
•  The four major NCDs were responsible for 82 per cent of NCD deaths.

• Around 42 per cent of all NCD deaths globally occurred before the age of 70; 48 per cent of NCD deaths in low and middle- income countries and 28 per cent in high-income countries were in people aged under 70 years.