ROADTOWN Tortola BVI, July 25th, 2011   – The Virgin Islands has joined 17 Caribbean countries in a regional text advocacy campaign to highlight the need for more funding towards the global prevention and management of chronic diseases, and to show support for the first United Nations Summit on Chronic Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

Under the theme, “Get the Message, Text the Message and Be the Message”, the pan Caribbean mobile phone text advocacy campaign is spearheaded in the Virgin Islands by the Ministry of Health and Social Development in collaboration with Healthy Caribbean Coalition and mobile partner LIME.

The United Nations Summit on Chronic Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), which is being held in New York on September, 19 and 20, was requested by CARICOM Heads of Government in response to the rising health and economic burden that NCDs have on Caribbean member states.

The Ministry of Health and Social Development is pleased to be one of the partners in the campaign and notes that chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancers, heart disease and respiratory diseases are the leading cause for sixty percent of deaths globally.

In the Americas, the Caribbean is the region that is most affected, with many families suffering the preventable loss of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who succumb to complications caused by the diseases.

By texting ‘YES’ to 4357 from a LIME mobile phone, the Territory hopes to contribute 25,000 text messages of support for the advocacy campaign. The texts are free and may be sent more than once. 500,000 texts are needed from the Caribbean region.

Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) states, “One of the major aims of the text campaign is to petition world leaders to increase attention and funding to the global prevention and management of chronic diseases. These text messages of support will be presented to CARICOM heads of government at the United Nations on behalf of the people of the Caribbean.”

The Ministry of Health and Social Development encourages the public to participate in the advocacy campaign by texting ‘YES’ to 4357 from a LIME mobile phone. Individuals can also log on to the social networking website Facebook at www.facebook.com/getthemessage and click ‘Like’ on the page to also show their support.

The “Get the Message” regional campaign ends on September, 10 and is being coordinated by the HCC, a civil society network of non-governmental organisations throughout the region. For more information about the campaign and the Get the Message “Text-a-Thon”, log on to www.healthycaribbean.org.

The Ministry of Health and Social Development endeavours to provide leadership that promotes health, social well being and a safe environment.

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