India is expected to lose $237 billion in national income due to chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs), according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is thus imperative that the country recognise the threat of CNCDs, say experts in a paper published in the journal Nature, Scidev.net reported.

CNCDs include cardiovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke), chronic respiratory diseases, some cancers and Type-2 diabetes.

The authors say these are responsible for 60 percent of deaths worldwide - with 80 percent occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the WHO estimate, China will lose $558 billion in national income in the same period.

'The economic impact is enormous. It is very much the (developing) countries, struggling to create a healthcare system, who are now being hit by the double burden of disease - both infectious diseases and these chronic diseases,' said Stig Pramming, executive director of the Britain-based Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA), at a teleconference.

A 'Grand Challenges Global Partnership' is being set up with a secretariat at OxHA and will be funded by its member organisations for the first five years. Its preliminary aim will be to oversee CNCD research efforts between organisations.

Nirmal Ganguly, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research - one of the partnership's founding members - told SciDev.Net that most of their efforts are going into preventative measures, such as funding a health advocacy programme and establishing a large 'community walking project' in Hyderabad.

The paper in Nature identifies the 20 most important measures needed to prevent and treat CNCDs today, based on the informed opinions of leading health scientists and organisations.

The measures are categorised into six broad goals, each of which are assigned necessary research priorities.

These include developing research activities for health that link with government departments, developing new biomarkers and diagnostics for early detection of CNCDs, and investigating the biological basis of poverty-related health risks.

Abdallah Daar, of the Canada-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health and lead author of the paper, said the consensus forms a 'road map' for policymakers and researchers.

'The interesting thing (about CNCDs) is that they are, at an individual level, preventable by simple measures, but these are not sustained at a national level and so we need to look at policies and interventions,' said Daar at a teleconference, adding that a change in focus, to prevention rather than treatment, was needed.