Call For More Global Support To Battle Epidemic

Call For More Global Support To Battle Epidemic

Nadi, Fiji, 25 June – Health specialists have appealed for increased United Nations support in the battle against the epidemic in the Pacific of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, heart attacks and cancer.

A meeting at the Tanoa Hotel in Nadi this week backed a call on the UN to hold a global summit on NCDs, to include them in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to create a global fund for NCD prevention and control.

This ‘upstreaming’ (to product sources) on efforts to reduce salt, sugar and fat in imported food in the Pacific recognises that pressure is required on food industries at the global level.

Participants noted that campaigns to reduce NCDs did not receive as much support as those against HIV/AIDS.

The Pacific Non-communicable Disease Forum – which brought together 75 doctors, health workers, international organisations, NGOs and academics from 22 countries – also called on governments, the private sector, neighbouring countries and the international community to give due recognition to the prevention and control of these diseases, which can cause premature, painful and slow death.

The forum was organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) under the Pacific NCD 2-1-22 Programme (two organisations, one team and 22 Pacific Islands countries and territories) with financial support from the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

The meeting focused on building capacity in monitoring, evaluation and surveillance of NCD interventions, and provided an opportunity for network building, information sharing and collaboration within PICTs.

WHO estimates that 75 per cent of deaths in the Pacific are caused by NCDs. It has also identified high levels of associated risk factors such as obesity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity.

The AUD 26million 2-1-22 programme provides grants to countries to help them reduce these risk factors through education, health promotion, and environmental and clinical interventions. The SPC and WHO administered programme is looking for results in countries from the many remedial campaigns now under way.

At regional and national levels, the meeting noted the increasing efforts to promote greater consumption of nutritious local fruits and vegetables, which are plentiful but often left to rot, in preference to less nutritious canned and packaged food.

Countries were encouraged to push through legislation addressing the risk factors, especially tobacco control, and to follow up with effective regulation.

Recognising that many of the causes of NCDs lie outside of the health sector, participants shared their experience of initiatives to include other sectors in activities addressing these diseases.

At the meeting, countries were also given assistance on the important task of monitoring and evaluating the progress of these campaigns, and adjusting them where necessary.

Given that reducing the prevalence of these diseases is a long-term project, indications of how countries are faring are expected to start showing up over the next three years in national WHO-administered NCD STEPS surveys, which provide scientific, updated, national and comparable data and are conducted in countries at least every seven years at different times.

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