What is the regional burden?

The regional burden of NCDs continues to grow and tackling this burden constitutes one of the major development challenges of the 21st century. NCDs claimed over 2.2 million lives in 2012, over 57% of all deaths. Future projections indicate there will be an alarming increase in the prevalence of NCDs with the 4 main NCDs causing as many as 2.4 million deaths in 2025, unless serious action is taken.