World leaders agree to cut deaths from non-communicable diseases by a quarter by 2025

Health ministers and senior officials from 194 countries have agreed to cut the number of premature deaths from the four most prevalent non-communicable diseases by a quarter by 2025.

The voluntary target was set at the 65th World Health Assembly in Geneva last week, eight months after world leaders signed an agreement to tackle the causes of the four major non-communicable diseases—diabetes, lung disease, cancer, and cardiovascular disease—at the United Nations General Assembly.1

However, at the UN meeting leaders failed to set any targets or goals for tackling the diseases, which cause 63% of the world’s deaths, four fifths of which are in low and middle income countries.

As well as agreeing to cut …