‘Health equity, technology crucial to tackling non-communicable diseases’

Health equity and the use of technology are central to preventing epidemics of non-communicable diseases (NCD), stated Aga Khan University’s project director Dr Zainab Saeed. “The epidemic of NCD presents an extraordinary crisis for the world,” she said. Yesterday, she revealed that AKU will partner with Duke University to address the critical gap in the response to the NCD epidemic. This programme, focused on cardio-cerebrovascular diseases and their shared risk factors, was awarded a research training grant by the US National Institutes of Health for $1.2 million over five years, she said. A large part of this grant will include research training that leverages digital information technology with an opportunity to work with AKU’s research incubator CITRIC’s Health Data Science Centre. “This grant brings together research and intellectual expertise from two major institutions across the world with the shared vision of enhancing research capacity to tackle non-communicable diseases in Pakistan,” she noted.