Health Experts meet on chronic
diseases
From Linda GNA Special Correspondent, Cape Town,
South Africa
Courtesy: Oxford Health Alliance/Ministry of Health
Cape Town, Nov.22, GNA - The former US Secretary of
Health, Tommy Thompson, has asked nations to invest
in education on the dangers of smoking to curb the
upsurge of chronic diseases, which has become the
world's number one killer.
He said the investment would not only be the
smartest business that could make nor prevent
chronic diseases but improve productivity and lower
health care cost.
Mr. Thompson made the call at the opening of a
three-day expert meeting on tackling the global
epidemic of chronic disease in Cape Town, South
Africa.
It is being attended by about 100 representatives
from 40 countries world-wide including six African
countries to brainstorm on how best to harness the
power of the media to encourage and facilitate
action on every level of society.
The former US Secretary of Health noted that 50 per
cent of deaths worldwide were due to chronic
diseases; respiratory, cardiovascular and diabetes
and it was unfortunate that health systems
attributed their inability to solve those health
problems to lack of money.
"Governments should make health a priority and
invest in health to save the lives of people and
that will improve productivity and solve all other
problems. People should not also wait till they are
ill before visiting the doctor", he added.
In the middle and lower income countries, 80 per
cent of deaths are due to chronic diseases, bringing
a double burden to affected countries, which are
already grappling with other infectious diseases and
Sub-Saharan Africa is the most hit.
Mr Thompson urged people to adopt a lifestyle of
walking for at last 30 minutes everyday to reduce
five to 10 per cent of body weight and help reduce
the instance of type two diabetes by 60 per cent.
"Chunky is good but slim is better and you must
start exercising now to prevent obesity".
Dr Stig Pramming, Executive Director of the Oxford
Health Alliance described the problem of chronic
disease as an urgent but not unsolvable which
required a new approach to fight.
He said a recent report by the Alliance indicated
that chronic disease would have a negative impact on
the economy of many countries if the current control
measures continued.
He noted that health services were still struggling
to cope with the provision of acute care for
infectious diseases and lacked both knowledge and
resources to tackle cardiovascular diseases,
diabetes and the cancers.
He said if the three risk factors: smoking, poor
diet and lack of exercise were completely
eliminated, 80 per cent of heart diseases, stroke
and some types of diabetes would be prevented as
well as 40 per cent reduction in the cancers.
"As many as 39 million premature deaths worldwide
could be prevented over the next decade by
addressing these three risk factors", he added.
GNA
