Health Chat
KIRAN BAGHAT | Monday May 5, 2008 00:00
This is a welcome statement and indeed an exciting one given the misunderstandings about chronic disease. These have certainly contributed to their global neglect and it is hoped that such moves in our country would prevent further ignorance on this condition. Chronic diseases are the major cause of death and disability worldwide.
Chronic diseases took the lives of 35 million people in 2005, including the young people and the middle-aged. The total number of people dying from chronic diseases is double that of all infectious diseases (including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria), maternal and prenatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies combined.
Eighty percent of chronic disease deaths occur in low and middle-income countries and half are in women.
Without action to address the causes, deaths from chronic diseases will increase by 17% between 2005-2015. However 17.528 million people died of heart disease in 2005. This is in contrast with 2.83 million HIV/AIDS deaths.
Several misunderstandings about chronic diseases need to be known.
* Whereas the common notion is that chronic diseases affect mostly high-income countries, the reality is that four out of five chronic disease deaths are in lower and middle-income countries.
* Many people believe that low and middle-income countries should control the infectious diseases before they tackle chronic diseases. In reality low and middle income countries are at the centre of both old and new public health challenges.
Whilst they continue to deal with the problems of infectious diseases, they are in many cases experiencing a rapid upsurge in chronic disease, risk factors and deaths, especially in urban settings.
* Many people think that chronic diseases mainly affect rich people. The truth is that in all but the least developed countries of the world, poor people are much more likely than the wealthy to develop chronic diseases, and everywhere are more likely to die as a result.
* Chronic diseases are often viewed as primarily affecting old people. We now know that almost half of chronic diseases deaths occur prematurely in people under 70 years of age.
In middle-income countries such as ours, middle age adults are especially vulnerable to chronic diseases. People in these countries tend to develop diseases at a younger age, suffer longer, (often with preventable complications) and die sooner than those in high-income countries.
* Several chronic diseases especially heart disease are often viewed as affecting primarily men. The truth is that chronic diseases including heart disease, affect women and men almost equally.
* Many people believe that if individuals develop chronic diseases as a result of unhealthy lifestyles, they have no one to blame but themselves. The truth is that the individual's responsibility can have its full effect only when individuals have equitable access to a healthy life and are supported to make healthy choices.
* This is especially so in children, who cannot choose the environment in which they live and their exposure to passive smoke from tobacco.
* Poor people also have limited choices about the foods they eat, their living conditions and their access to education and healthcare.
* Some people believe that there is nothing that can be done anyway. In reality the major causes of chronic diseases are known and if these risk factors were eliminated at least 80 percent of premature heart diseases, stroke and diabetes would be prevented. Forty percent of cancer could also be prevented.
* Some people believe that the solutions for chronic disease, prevention and control are too expensive to be feasible for low and middle-income countries.
In reality a full range of chronic disease interventions are very cost-effective in all regions of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa.