As we look forward to a busy and exciting 2018, we would like to share with you some of our highlights and achievements from 2017 in our fight against cardiovascular disease (CVD), also outlined in our End of Year Review.
A number of successful meetings and events took place in 2017. The 2nd Global Summit on Circulatory Health, which was held in Singapore in July, saw the formation of the Global Coalition for Circulatory Health. The WHF African Summit convened the medical community, politicians, policy makers and organizational leaders to share ideas on how to improve cardiovascular health and care in Africa. And of course, World Heart Day 2017 was our most successful yet, reaching over 2 billion people globally.
2017 also saw the launch of the #TimeToTackleRHD campaign for Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD), which aimed to persuade governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) to act on this preventable disease. In addition, we launched the WHF Roadmap on Cholesterol, which led to national roundtables on cholesterol in Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Saudi Arabia.
Our partnership with UEFA and Healthy Stadia saw the final year of the “Children of the City” campaign to encourage children to be more active. We were also involved in the UEFA Women’s EURO championship through the “A Healthy Heart Your Goal” campaign and the Homeless World Cup.
The 2016-17 Emerging Leaders Programme, which focused on access to essential medicines, was a great success and we look forward to sharing the results of the various projects.
Finally, WHF advocated on behalf of the CV community at many major WHO meetings and events, including the World Health Assembly, Executive Board meetings and regional Committee Meetings.
For more detail on these important achievements, take a look at our End of Year Review 2017.
In 2018, we have even more to look forward to. The WHO’s World No Tobacco Day 2018 on May 31 will focus on the important link between tobacco and heart disease. The Emerging Leaders Programme 2017-18  will focus on stroke prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, with the think tank taking place from 25-29 June at Duke Kunshan University in the proximity of Shanghai. In September, the UN will hold its High-Level Meeting on NCDs, where we expect some important decisions to be made regarding NCDs and CVDs. On September 29th we will once again celebrate World Heart Day, which will have a new theme and we expect to be our most successful yet. To finish the year, we will host the 3rd Global Summit on Circulatory Health and World Congress of Cardiology & Cardiovascular Health in Dubai in the beginning of December.
It will be a busy and exciting year, and we look forward to join forces in the battle to tackle CVDs. In the meantime, we would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2018!
