Non-communicable disease Non-communicable disease A non-communicable disease (NCD) is a disease that is not transmissible directly from one person to another. NCDs include Parkinson's disease, autoimmune diseases, strokes, most heart diseases, most cancers, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, cataracts, and others. NCDs may be chronic or acute. Most are non-infectious, although there are some non-communicable infectious diseases, such as parasitic diseases in which the parasite's life cycle does not include direct host-to-host transmission. NCDs are the leading cause of death globally. In 2012, they caused 68% of all deaths (38 million) up from 60% in 2000. About half were
Eradication of infectious diseases poliomyelitis, yaws, dracunculiasis, and malaria. Five more infectious diseases have been identified as potentially eradicable with current technology by the Carter Center International Task Force for Disease Eradication—measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis and cysticercosis. So far, two diseases have been successfully eradicated—one specifically affecting humans (smallpox), and one affecting a wide range of ruminants (rinderpest). Smallpox was the first disease, and so far the only infectious disease of humans, to be eradicated by deliberate intervention. It became the first disease for which there was an effective vaccine in 1798 when Edward Jenner showed the protective effect of inoculation (vaccination) of