Devex

Early detection and diagnosis:

A critical link for effective NCD management

Date

September 26

Location

New York

Hosted by:

Event Overview

On the occasion of the 73rd UN General Assembly and the third High-level Meeting on Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), Devex and Royal Philips – in collaboration with the World Economic Forum – hosted a special session during the World Economic Forum NCD Day to discuss the importance of diagnosis and early detection in the battle against NCDs.

The panel of featured speakers discussed why we need to expand the conversation from a prevention and treatment focused framework to include the importance of diagnosis and early detection. Why are diagnostics left out of the conversation so often and how do we bring them to the discussion as a distinct, but equally important, tool in the fight against NCDs?

It also explored the link to wider conversation around universal health coverage by highlighting the importance of early detection and diagnosis of NCDs in community and primary care settings. The event gathered over 80 global leaders from the private sector, government, international organizations, and civil society who were all invited to share their thoughts and comments during the Q&A.

Speakers

Honorable Minister Amir Aman Hagos

Ministry of Health, Ethiopia

Dr. Aman Hagos is the Minister of Health of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. A physician by training, with a master’s degree in public health, he is a dedicated public health professional and has served as a medical practitioner in a primary hospital in a small town of Oromia Regional state. Prior to his appointment as Minister, he served as Director General of Policy and Planning Directorate and Director of Human Resources Directorate, and was finally serving as State Minister of Health in MOH.

Sania Nishtar

Founder & President, Heartfile, Co-chair of the High-Level Commission on NCDs, WHO

Dr. Nishtar is the internationally acclaimed Pakistani physician and public health expert. She currently co-chairs WHO’s High-Level Commission on Non-communicable diseases along with the presidents of Uruguay, Finland and Sri-Lanka. She also co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the future of healthcare and the U.S National Academy of Sciences Global Study on the Quality of Healthcare in low and middle-income countries.

Rachel Nugent

VP, Global NCDs, RTI International

Dr. Nugent has more than 30 years of experience in global development as a researcher, practitioner, and policy advisor to governments. She leads a team charged with providing policy analysis, implementation, and evaluation of cost-effective strategies to prevent and control global NCDs. RTI’s global NCD experts generate and translate new evidence to help guide global and national decision-making aimed at NCD detection, prevention, and control.

Vanessa Candeias

Head of Health and Healthcare System Initiative, World Economic Forum

With over 15 years of experience in public health, Vanessa Candeias is the Head of Global Health and Healthcare Initiative at the World Economic Forum. Before joining the Forum, she worked with the Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion of the World Health Organization headquarters, the Ministry of Health in Portugal and the Institute of Preventive Medicine of the University of Lisbon.

Pete Troilo

Director, Global Advisory and Analysis, Devex

As director of global research and analysis, Pete Troilo's primary goal is to make sense of development finance trends by providing practical, business-focused insights and guidance. An emerging markets consultant who has worked in both the Middle East and Southeast Asia, he was formerly an international political and security risk consultant and also served as member of the Iraq Policy and Operations Group within the U.S. Department of State.

Vanessa Kerry

CEO & Founder, Seed Global Health

Dr. Kerry is the co-founder and the CEO of Seed Global Health. Having worked in resource‐limited settings for over a decade, Dr. Kerry has witnessed health inequities around many places in the world and how shortages of local health providers in their home countries contribute to those inequities. Concurrent with her role as CEO, she is a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves as the Associate Director of Partnerships and Global Initiatives at MGH Global Health.

Kibachio Joseph Muirui Mwangi

Head of NCD Division, Ministry of Health, Kenya

Dr. Muiruri Mwangi is the head of the Division of NCDs in the Ministry of Health in Kenya. He is a medical doctor with public health training from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Field Epidemiology training program. He has specialized on NCD programming and policy issues on prevention and control with a keen focus on the integration of NCDs into primary care platforms.

Jan Kimpen

Chief Medical Officer, Royal Philips

Jan Kimpen is Chief Medical Officer at Philips, a position he has held since January 2016. He joined the University Medical Center Utrecht, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the Netherlands, in 1997 as professor and chairman of Pediatrics, and became President of the Board in 2009. Kimpen supports Philips in its integrated approach to coordinated care across the health continuum, focusing on value-based care solutions that deliver better patient outcomes at lower costs.

Moderator

Raj Kumar

President & Editor-in-Chief, Devex

Raj Kumar leads a global team of over 100 Devexers and serves a community of 1 million global development professionals. His personal experience in over 50 countries, including a childhood partly spent in rural India, informs his work.