Dhaka, Oct. 11 -- World leaders gathered in New York for the fourth UN High-Level Meeting on noncommunicable diseases on 25 September 2025.

They adopted a declaration urging countries to make prevention and treatment measurable, financed, and accountable. Bangladesh hardly needs convincing: noncommunicable diseases already account for about two-thirds of deaths in the country, according to WHO country report.

Yet in too many upazila health complexes and community clinics, lifesaving medicines, antihypertensives, diabetes drugs, inhalers, and statinsremain unavailable when patients arrive.

In mid-2024, it was warned that the medicine supply to community clinics had nearly collapsed. In early September 2025, the government dispatched Tk ...