KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 ― Responding more effectively to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors has now become the major healthcare challenge for Malaysia and the region, as the rising incidence of NCDs require very different and far more complex responses than those of the past.
The Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Shah said rates of NCDs including heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illnesses and cancer had increased considerably across the region in recent decades, where South-east Asia now had the fastest rising NCD rates in the world.
“From only around 40 per cent in 1990, they now account for at least 60 to 70 per cent of the death and disease burden in the region,” he said in his speech at the opening of the Kuala Lumpur Conference on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, here, today.
The text of the Sultan’s speech was made available to Bernama.
Sultan Nazrin Shah said as the infrastructure and workforce of countries of the region were not developed to provide the complex care required for the treatment and control of NCDs, a major transition had become necessary.
He said the region’s primary health care systems, which were designed to administer vaccinations, deliver pre- and post-natal care, and provide dengue prevention education, through networks of community health clinics, now had to evolve into far better equipped and more sophisticated systems that were required to deliver long-term acute and palliative care to growing numbers.
“Despite the limited means available to fund this transformation, there have been some progress towards it across the region. Targeted NCD policies are now common, and healthcare systems are slowly undergoing modernisation and here in Malaysia, we have made considerable investments in our healthcare sector.
“Populations across the developing world have become increasingly susceptible to a number of risk factors for NCDs, where for Malaysia, both its relative affluence as an upper middle-income country and its high level of urbanisation, make it particularly vulnerable.”
Noting that marked improvements in health status experienced in many developing countries were due in part to rising incomes and economic growth, Sultan Nazrin Shah said the situation was now being undermined by deteriorating diets and greater exposure to other NCD risk factors, as part of these same processes of development.
“Urbanisation is a key aspect, being associated with various risk factors including stress, pollution, smoking and poor diet.
“Increased urbanisation also contributes to higher levels of stress, due to modern work patterns, environmental factors such as pollution, and poverty, and the impacts of stress were seen in high rates of hypertension, as well as in rising rates of mental health problems.”
He said increasing rates of chronic disease were also associated with rising longevity as a result of life expectancy gains, where this was partly why the overall incidence of NCDs continued to rise in higher income countries, despite more effective treatment and some successes in addressing various risk factors.
“The number of NCDs, which used to be associated with developed rather than developing countries is now higher in developing countries due to poverty.
“The lack of comprehensive public healthcare provision in many developing countries greatly increases the burden that falls directly on households themselves, and disproportionately on poorer households. Poorer households in high-income countries are also both more susceptible to certain risk factors, and less able to bear the costs of NCDs,” the Sultan said.
Applauding strategies to address NCDs which are now being implemented across the region, he said more integrated approach, including a greater focus on preventative measures, should gradually contribute to slowing the spread and lessening the impact of the epidemic.
Sultan Nazrin Shah said greater efforts must now also be focused on addressing other aspects of the NCD epidemic.
“These include the substantial vested financial interests in the continued consumption of unhealthy products such as tobacco, alcohol, processed food and soft drinks, as well as greater regulation as part of prevention,” he said. ― Bernama
