ACCORDING to a report on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) titled NCD Scoreboard, Bangladesh has been performing poorly in reducing risks of NCDs like stroke, diabetes, cancer, and cardiac and chronic lung complications.
News reports also shed light on how the country is not doing well in reducing risk factors, conducting research and surveillance, and strengthening health systems in relation to the NCDs, responsible for half of the country’s annual mortality.
The NCDs account for 61 percent of Bangladesh’s disease burden, says the report published on Friday by the renowned medical journal – The Lancet. Local news reports highlighted how Grand South, a global network of 11 research centres including the Dhaka-based icddr,b, developed the scorecard on 23 countries as a tool to monitor and help improve performance of the countries with high NCDs prevalence.
Level of smoking, intake of saturated fats, salt and sugar, unhealthy food, poor physical activity, use of fossil fuel, obesity and level of cholesterol among the adults have been considered as factors in determining Bangladesh’s performance, according to the reports. News reports added how in South Asia, Bangladesh and India scored moderately well in the areas of planning and leadership, while scored very low in execution. Little physical activity and unhealthy diets are becoming very common among the urbanites, noted an expert on the matter.
The fight to win against NCDs is one with very specific requirements. We believe the experts when they say it is an emerging threat to Bangladesh and we also suggest that the State and its Health Ministry must band together with other Ministries and NGOs so that we can tackle the issue before it gets worse.
While the government’s work in certain areas of control and treatment are appreciable, it is in no way enough to completely stabilize or control NCDs in the country. So far our healthcare system is not equipped with enough trained personnel at the secondary and tertiary level and thus vigorous efforts must be put into hiring staff who will train potential healthcare professionals to combat NCDs.
A priority based system must also be created that helps with NCD surveillance and the government must work towards making essential medication available to patients. Policies must also be made taking the intake of salt, high content sugar beverages, trans-fats in consideration and proper supervision must be done of marketing of unhealthy foods. This is a long battle towards achieving a healthy nation and thus we must make necessary changes in our health care system so that people receive treatment properly and do not suffer from NCDs that could have been easily prevented.
