Forum talks non-communicable diseases strategy
Moderated by Ha Anh
Duc and Vuong Tuan Anh, both senior researchers at the Institute of
Population, Health and Development, the roundtable discussed how the
country’s healthcare eco-system needs to adapt to meet challenges in the
face of rising NCD rates.
"Southeast Asia is no doubt struggling
with the challenges of successfully managing the NCD burden," Duc, who
is a founding member of the ASEAN NCD Network, said.
NCDs account
for 60 percent of global deaths, with 80 percent of these deaths
occurring in low- and middle-income countries, making them a major cause
of poverty and an urgent growing issue.
In Vietnam, the overall NCD morbidity and mortality rates have been rising rapidly in the last two decades.
The mortality rate from NCDs is four times higher than from infectious diseases.
Cardiovascular
diseases are now the leading cause of death in the country, killing
three times more people than infectious and parasitic diseases, and
accounting for nearly a fifth of the total disease burden.
But
the risk of many NCDs can be lowered with concerted efforts by all
stakeholders to drive behavioral change, the workshop heard.
"The
ASEAN NCD Network is taking the first big step towards helping the
countries in the region to find plausible, long-term solutions," Sanjay
Bapna, head of SEA, Philips Healthcare APAC, said.
"Some of the
ideas and solutions shared through the session in Hanoi today might be
further developed into working policies and initiatives to help with the
burden of non-communicable diseases on the local and national
healthcare systems,” Sanjay Bapna added.
The ASEAN NCD Network has undertaken a bloc-wide study on innovations in NCD Management with a core focus on Vietnam.-VNA