Prime Minister Harris Calls for End to NCDs and HIV/AIDS

(ZIZ News) — Prime Minister, the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris used his address at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday to reiterate his call for greater attention to be paid to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

“Indeed, we continue to wrestle with the high incidence of NCDs like Cancer, heart disease, Diabetes and Hypertension in our country and throughout the CARICOM region,” he said, adding that “we wish to reiterate our call for a stronger global response to combating this in developing countries like ours.”

Prime Minister Harris urged the United Nations and its allied agencies to play a leading role in confronting the problem of Non-Communicable Diseases.

“We remain hopeful that the inclusion of NCDs into the sustainable development goals and the implementation of the targets and indicators at the national level will serve to reverse the high incidence of NCDs at the national, regional and global levels,” he said, adding that “the famous adage “a nation’s health is a nation’s wealth” resonates with us. We would therefore urge the united nations through its specialised agencies and regional offices to play a leading role in this regard.”

Dr. Harris also updated the UN body on St. Kitts and Nevis’ own goals as it relates to HIV and AIDS.

He said, “we are pleased with the work of UNAIDS and our own CARPHA, and PANCAP in CARICOM and we call for continued global solidarity in this endeavour. Indeed, my own country is on track to achieve zero mother-to-child transmission by the end of 2015 and we are committed to the CARICOM region becoming the first in the world to end AIDS by 2030.”

The 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly was centered on the theme “The United Nations at 70—A New Commitment to Action.”