A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the growing problem of the chronic disease burden. across the globe. One in three adults worldwide has raised blood pressure – a condition that causes around half of all deaths from stroke and heart disease, the report says. In addition, the incidences of diabetes and obesity are rising around the world.
“This report is further evidence of the dramatic increase in the conditions that trigger heart disease and other chronic illnesses, particularly in low- and middle-income countries,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. “In some African countries, as much as half the adult population has high blood pressure.”
Widespread diagnosis and treatment with low-cost drugs has significantly reduced mean blood pressure across populations in high income countries, WHO says. In turn, this has contributed to a reduction in deaths from heart disease. In Africa, however, more than 40 percent of adults in many countries are estimated to have high blood pressure. Yet most of these people remain undiagnosed, even though many of these cases could be treated with low-cost medications, which would significantly reduce the risk of death and disabling illnesses.
For diabetes, the global average prevalence is around 10 percent but as much as one-third of populations in some Pacific Island countries have this condition. The incidence of obesity doubled in every region of the world between 1980 and 2008, reports Dr. Ties Boerma, Director of the Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems at WHO. “Today, half a billion people (12 percent of the world’s population) are considered obese.”
Further action: The World Health Assembly, being held in Geneva from May 21 to May 26, 2012, will review progress in these disease areas and will discuss ways to develop a global monitoring framework to set voluntary targets for prevention and control of these diseases, targeting risk factors.
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