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First, a very big thank you to the Ministry of Health for organizing this Health Partnership Group meeting, which WHO is proud to support.
I want to begin by asking you to imagine for a moment: a new epidemic sweeping the globe, killing 45 million people this year, including nearly half a million people in Viet Nam.
It sounds scary – but it is not hypothetical. It’s happening now and will worsen unless we act.
This is the epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs): cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes—the world’s biggest killers, claiming far more lives than HIV, TB, and malaria combined.
Some say, “People have to die of something when they get old.”
But NCDs are not just diseases of old age. About 40% of NCD deaths are premature, occurring before the age of 70 – that is, people dying in their productive years.
For every five people in Viet Nam aged 30 today, at least one will die of an NCD before they reach 70—and most likely one that could have been prevented.
This is not an inevitability which we should simply accept. It is a public health crisis.
We know that up to 60% of NCDs are preventable.
Yet NCD prevention and control receive only 1% of global health funding. And nearly three-quarters of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
So, it’s time NCDs receive the attention, political focus, and investment they deserve.
That’s why today’s meeting matters.
The evidence is clear: we need to do two things.
The first is we need to do more to prevent NCDs, by taking action on modifiable risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity, the harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and – important for Viet Nam – environmental risk factors including air pollution.
Of course, this is something the health sector cannot do alone. And this is why the theme of this meeting, focusing on multisectoral collaboration, is so important. On tobacco use, for example – the single most effective way of reducing this is through taxation, led by the Ministry of Finance. Or air pollution – the health sector bears the consequences of this problem, but the solutions mostly belong in industry, agriculture, transport and energy.
The second thing we need to do much, much better is management of NCDs such as hypertension and diabetes, especially through the primary health care system. Good NCD management is the difference between someone with high blood pressure living a long, healthy and productive life, or ending up in the ICU (or worse) following a massive stroke or heart attack.
Strengthening both prevention and management of NCDs is obviously good for people’s health. It will also deliver dividends for societies and economies: WHO estimates that every dollar invested in NCD prevention will return an average of 7 dollars in economic benefits in the next 15 years.
And so, I want to end on a note of optimism – despite the challenges in getting more traction on these issues, we have seen some extremely exciting progress here in Viet Nam recently.
Here I want to quickly mention three things that really give me hope.
Firstly, I mentioned earlier the importance of taxes on tobacco in reducing smoking rates. Just this year, the National Assembly adopted changes to tobacco taxation which WHO modelling shows will result in 2.1 million fewer smokers in the next 5 years and avert 700,000 premature deaths in the coming 2-3 decades. A huge achievement.
Secondly, Viet Nam is also making big gains in hypertension management. With thanks to Resolve to Save Lives (and we will hear from its CEO and President, Dr Tom Frieden in a moment), WHO has been honoured to collaborate with the Ministry of Health on a model that has now reached more than 2 million people, helping them be better protected from heart attacks and strokes with controlled hypertension.
Thirdly, current health sector reforms under Resolution 72 present a once-in-a-generation opportunity to prioritize disease prevention and strengthen primary health care, as we saw just last week with the National Assembly’s adoption of the new Law on Disease Prevention, the new Law for Sustainable Development and the new National Target Programme on Health Care, Population and Development (2026-2035).
In closing, I would like to thank Minister Lan for leadership that has driven progress in all of these areas.
WHO is proud to accompany Viet Nam in these efforts, and despite the challenges, I am confident that with continued support from international and national partners, we can scale up action against NCDs and build a healthier and stronger Viet Nam.
Xin Cam On!