TZW
The poignant message he has stressed is that NCDs constituted a big burden to all countries across the world and that sectors beyond health ministries and allied outfits were duty-bound to chip in, in order to curb the problem more effectively. The premier was speaking on Monday evening during the launching of the 65th ECSA Health Ministers’ Conference.
According to WHO, the World Health Organisation, NCDs or chronic diseases, were ailments of diseases of long duration and generally slow progression. There are four main types of non-communicable diseasescardio- vascular (like heart attacks and stroke), cancer, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructed pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes. NCDs are now the leadingcause of death in most regions of the world, accounting for up to 70 per cent of all deaths worldwide.
In 2012, for example, the diseases killed 38 million people of whom 80 per cent were from developing countries, including those in Africa. About half of these people died before the age of 70. Some 80 per cent of all NCD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Premier Majaliwa said the promotion of healthy diets, physical exercises and other lifestyle changes may only be achieved through concerted efforts of actors across various sectors.
“In some of our member states, NCDs have become the leading cause of illness and even death; in other member states, they account for a bigger proportion of the disease burden more than ever before, and so, we need collaborative efforts to end this menace,” he remarked. Mr Majaliwa said usually ECSA member states had to deal with the double burden of diseases that affected mostly low and middle-income countries but besides the threat posed by communicable diseases, NCDs threatened the lives of many in the region.
On communicable diseases, he said the ever increasing crossborder movement of humans and animals had made the control of such diseases even more challenging. Premier Majaliwa said the region was still grappled with a huge burden of Tuberculosis (TB) at a time when antimicrobial resistance was slow but surely setting in. In recent years, the region witnessed a gradual increase in the prevalence of drug resistant strains of TB.
The three day conference is hosted by Tanzania, through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, in collaboration with the ECSA Health Community.
It brings together ministers of health, senior officials from ministries of health in the member states, partners, health training institutions and health research institutions. The conference is themed “Multi-sectoral Collaboration for Health towards Achievement of the SDGs”.
Member states of the ECSA Health Community are Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Earlier, ECSA-HC Director General, Professor Yoswa Dambisya, in his opening remarks , emphasized that it was critical for the health sector to interact and collaborate with others.
“To achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially goal number three that focuses on ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, Africa needs a paradigm shift to embrace a multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary approach,” he said. Prof Dambisya said achievement of the health and related goals presupposed well-functioning health systems that were not only capable of delivering biomedical and public health interventions to all people according to their needs but are also accountable to the people they served.
A representative from the World Bank, Dr Paolo Belli, remarked, in his keynote address, that it was important to strengthen the health component in other sectors. “Most health challenges require a multi-sectoral approach to be tackled effectively, most of the time multi-sectoral interventions are difficult but possible,” he said.
Dr Belli said the region must also understand that health systems are not bicycles; therefore it was not easy to reform them, and as such, a multi-sectoral approach was very important.
WHO Representative Prof Jean-Marie Dangou, noted that NDCs seemed to receive less political attention in most of the countries, and consequently, the unfair burden kept on increasing in which eight million people die each year.
“The burden of the disease in most countries is huge; it is high time for governments in Africa to bring change and allocate commensurate resources to deal with NCDs,” he said.