NCDs ,A beatable beast
It was Friday night when they told me that my cousin is unconscious and he was having final exam next day .Family asked me to check him being a medical student and i checked his blood sugar and it was a shock to find it over 700 .It was a shock for me that he is just 16 years old and has diabetes type 1 .Few Months later my grandfather died of untreated hypertension .Then i know NCDs are silent killer who tracks unaware people of its hazards .NCDs is considered one of the leading causes of premature deaths globally with a huge burden economically for its treatment costs on one hand , on the other hand it deprives communities of Man power due to less productivity of diseased people specially in low income countries.
When it comes to numbers , in 2015, 70% of global deaths were due to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The four main NCDs are cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases. The burden of these diseases is rising disproportionately among lower income countries and populations. In 2015, over three quarters of NCD deaths — 30.7 million — occurred in low- and middle-income countries with about 48% of deaths occurring before the age of 70 in these countries.Which rings a bell to stand along together and fight NCDs .
I strongly believe that NCDs issue is like a tree that has roots of causes that leads to leaves of complications and consequences ,therefor we have to figure out the roots and work on it .NCDs roots are not just health related however combined with other factors such as poverty ,Illiteracy and poor access to equal and good medication especially in low income countries besides sedentary life style and dominance of international junk food , Alcohol and tobacco companies in high income countries .Obesity is more prevalent in High income countries due to fast paced life style which resembles a huge risk factor for NCDs besides high consumption of tobacco and alcohol .In my part of the world , we do suffer more from NCDs but due to unawareness of NCDs that most of the patients seek medical help when they have complications of NCDs and then comes the challenge with inadequate and unequal medical treatment .Therefor treatment and prevention programs are dealing with leaves of NCDs tree not the roots that is why it keeps regrowing .I do believe there is a hug gap between what is being discussed at global levels and what is being achieved on the national levels due to many reasons including inadequate evaluation and monitoring systems tracking globally adopted strategies .In addition to non cooperation of governments and absence of youth empowerment especially in low income countries due to high benefits and profits between those governments and food , tobacco , alcohol entities .For example ,In Egypt we do not have well planned national strategy for NCDs as they focus more on hepatitis C ,however NCDs causes much morbidity and mortality ,and i strongly believe that is owing to lack of publicity ,research and advocacy means to attract decision makers , sponsors and governments to form national ,sustainable and inclusive NCDs program .However when i was at NCDs alliance forum in Emirates i met health workers from Kuwait who told me they do not tax tobacco as they do not need the taxes money !! Obviously it is not about money but about decreasing consumption and usage of this taxes for health purposes .
I have been working on public health field since 2013 and i have focused on Non Communicable Diseases that i emphasized its burden and hazards ,and i do believe that my biggest achievement is to sustain our work on NCDs through building secondary line of young leaders to continue my work ,that when i was public health officer at IFMSA Egypt (International Federation of medical student association ) for two terms ,i have formed a local team of new members as project coordinators and coordinators assistants and integrated them into public health work early .At my last term i have organized an initiative called (Check up) about estimating the NCDs risk factors such as obesity among My university students (Menoufia University) and co relation to study curricula and regular exercise and it was published as an abstract in conferences in Macedonia and Bangladesh ,And i had project team of 4 new members as my assistant ,project coordinator and two coordinator assistants who got promoted to be national public health officer assistant and public health officers respectively and continued their passion to recruit more public health activists to work on NCDs .
I expect NCDs to have much more marketing globally about its magnitude and hazards and to be the first priority among the SDGs in the future especially they are so connected to other SDGs being the causes or the roots of NCDs as i have mentioned before .I am also expecting much more fund to be directed for global health systems and health insurances especially in low income countries to support treatment and prevention programs of NCDs .I hope to have multi national health-related entities to limit spread of fast food ,Alcohol and tobacco companies besides much more restrictions for their usage especially for adolescents and teens .
I have been always keen on fundraising my campaigns that i do live in low income country with limited resources, therefor i used some innovative ways such as making partnership with bio-medical labs to provide total lipid profiles for obese and overweight subjects .Small pharmaceutical companies were very potential partners through providing us with all equipment and tools needed such as sugar measuring devices and for financing logistics .Sports clubs are major sponsors through using their pitches and facilities for sport competitions and marathons including media coverage with simple registration fees which is used to fund the rest of the campaigns . Food firms especially dairy products that were our sponsor for (build your body project about good nutrition for adolescent and kids .
NCDs are a beast which is easy to beat by 3Ps which are planning ,patience and proper evaluation and monitoring .