BSS, Dhaka :
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggested ‘urgent’ government action to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and prevent the death of millions of people, every year, most of them in the developing countries.
Brain stroke, cancer and diabetes fall under the category of NCD. A new report of WHO says “38 million lives were lost to NCDs in 2012, of which 16 million or 42 percent were premature deaths – up from 14.6 million in 2000”. It also says that most premature NCD deaths were preventable.
The new report provides a fresh perspective on key lessons learned in the global fight to reduce premature deaths from NCDs by 25 percent within 2025. The initiative is now in its fifth year, says WHO.
“The global community has the chance to change the course of the NCD epidemic,” says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, who launched the report titled “Global Status Report on Non-communicable Diseases 2014” in Geneva on Monday.
“By investing just US 1-3 dollar, per person, per year, countries could dramatically reduce illness and death from NCDs. In 2015, every country needed to set national targets and implement cost-effective actions. If they do not, millions of lives would continue to be lost too soon,” she said.
WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh says “Nearly 8.5 million people died of non-communicable diseases in this region in 2012. The problem is growing”, she says, “particularly in South-East Asia, where two out of three deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases”.
WHO says premature NCD deaths can be significantly reduced through government policies aimed at reducing tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity, and delivering universal health care.
For example, in Brazil the NCD mortality rate dropped by 1.8 percent, per year, due in part to the expansion of primary health care. But the report calls for more action to be taken to curb the epidemic, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where deaths due to NCDs were overtaking those from infectious diseases.
Bangladesh is one of these countries under epidemiological transition from infectious disease to NCDs.
