A World Health Organization report released today predicts that nearly 400 million people will die from heart disease, diabetes and other chronic, or noncommunicable, ailments over the next decade. WHO called for healthier lifestyles and inexpensive medicines to reverse the trend. Until recently, infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS have overshadowed such conditions though they account for three out of five deaths worldwide, said WHO. Although other studies have predicted the number of deaths from individual diseases, the WHO report was the first to project the toll from all major chronic conditions and to quantify the economic burden of treating such conditions in individual countries. The study also urged developing countries to adopt prevention policies that have worked in industrialized countries, and it gave examples of nations that have successfully cut death rates through public-education campaigns.

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