It shouldn’t be either or.
A flurry of articles, posts, blogs and columns of print the past few weeks talk about non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their impact on global health. After a decade of (not unwarranted) attention on HIV/AIDS and malaria, public health officials backed up by organisations such as WHO, are recognising that preventable, mostly “lifestyle diseases” like diabetes and hypertension, are not just problems in affluent nations, but they are killing more people worldwide than infectious diseases.