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 Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia face alarming chronic disease levels, way above high-income countries, World Bank Report says.

The World Bank warned today that heart disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory conditions, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) increasingly threaten the health and economic security of many lower- and middle-income countries, and that most countries lack the money and health services to be able to ‘treat their way out’ of the NCD crisis. On the eve of a special United Nations summit on NCDs in New York, the Bank said the rise of chronic diseases, especially among young working adults in these countries, was a danger that warranted immediate global attention.

For example, in South Asia, where cardiovascular disease is already a major cause of death and disability, people have their first heart attacks at an average age of 53 compared with 59 in the rest of the world. In the Middle East and North Africa, NCDs are growing among women and adolescents, driven by factors unrelated to age, such as growing rates of obesity and smoking. And ominously, one in four people in Ukraine between the ages of 18 and 65 has a chronic disease with growing numbers of young people being affected, prompting the conclusion that the country could ‘lose the next generation to chronic disease.’

If current trends persist, the new report says that Sub-Saharan Africa will be the region hardest-hit by the NCDs crisis. If left unchecked, chronic diseases will account for 46 percent of all deaths by 2030, up from 28 percent in 2008. South Asia could see the share of deaths from NCDs increase from 51 to 72 percent during the same period. More than 30 percent of these deaths will be premature and preventable. At the same time, these countries will continue to grapple with the widespread prevalence of communicable diseases such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and mother and child conditions, thus facing a “double burden” of disease not experienced by wealthier nations.

“What makes the development impact of chronic diseases so daunting for lower and middle income countries is that they don’t have the money and the health systems to treat their way out of this crisis, and they’re facing it at far earlier stages of economic progress than their better-off OECD neighbors had to,” says Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, the Bank’s Vice President for Human Development.