High-level meeting called to discuss/tackle non-communicable diseases

Government Ministers from different sectors will meet today with academicians, Judges from the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), representatives of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Caricom Secretariat, organs and institutions and civil society, to discuss the use of laws and regulations to help reduce non-communicable diseases (NCD), which account for three out of four deaths in the Caribbean.
The high-level meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
The meeting, is expected to bring members of the CCJ Academy of Law together with representatives of relevant Caricom organs and institutions, sub-regional partners, and international organsations to discuss policies and strategies for using the law as a powerful tool to address NCDs, focusing particularly on tobacco control legislation and laws and regulations that can help prevent obesity.
The meeting is organised by the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), the Caribbean Court of Justice Academy of Law and the FAO.
Representatives of Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago will present their countries’ experiences and lessons learned in using laws and regulations to address NCDs. Other subjects will include the role of community law in addressing NCDs, how to mobilise political will to advance the use of legal measures, and how to harmonise policy approaches to face this challenge.
PAHO/WHO is encouraging Caribbean authorities to adopt effective laws and regulations that can contribute to reducing the burden of NCDs and their risk factors, as well as their social and economic consequences
Although progress remains insufficient, there are examples of best practices in the Caribbean that could to be scaled up. They include taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, bans on the sale of sugary beverages in schools, and progress on tobacco control legislation in several countries. Caribbean heads of government and other Caricom leaders have repeatedly called for expanding such measures to help reduce NCDs.
Non communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases, together with their four shared risk factors – tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity – are the leading causes of death, illness and disability in the Caribbean. High rates of NCDs are the reason people in the Caribbean have a greater probability of dying prematurely (before age 70) than people from any other sub-region of the Americas.