New Delhi, Apr 7: The Union Health Minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, today said Rs 1,660 crores had been earmarked in the 11th Plan under a National Programme for Prevention and Control of Diabetes, Cardio-vascular Diseases and Stroke.
 Azad made the announcement during the seminar ‘National Consultation on Urbanisation & Health: Challenges and Solutions,” to mark the World Health Day.
 Azad said the non-communicable diseases had started taking a great toll. “While the potential years of life lost in India due to infectious diseases are expected to decline from 54 per dent in 1990 to 24 per cent by 2020, the same due to non-communicable diseases is projected to increase from 30 per cent in 1990 to over 56 per cent in 2020,” he said.
 He said cardio-vascular diseases were the world’s largest killers, claiming 17.1 million lives a year while tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
 However Azad conceded there was shortage of manpower, hospital beds and tertiary care facilities in the rural areas. He said the urban poor suffer disproportionately from many diseases and other health problems and were exposed to increased risk of chronic disease, mental health and behavioural disorders, injuries and violence along with communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
 He said an estimated 8 to 14 million people die prematurely every year in developing countries due to preventable NCDs – mainly cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory diseases.
 “These people are dying too young as a result of increased exposure to the common risk factors for NCDs: unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use and the harmful use of alcohol,” he said adding the WHO projected, that globally deaths caused by these health problems would increase by 17 per cent over the next decade.
 He said the International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries had referred India as “diabetes capital” of the world, as there had been alarming rise diabetes cases. “Currently, up to 11 percent of India’s urban population and three per cent of rural population above the age of 15 have diabetes,” Azad said.
 According to the ICMR Cancer registry programme, there are approximately 2.5 million cases of cancer in India at any given point of time, and about 0.9 million new cases occur every year, he said adding nearly 0.4 million patients die due to the disease every year.
 “In view of this, the National Cancer Control Programme is being revised with a focus on community based approach and strengthening cancer care facilities at the districts and tertiary care level. We are in the process of establishing ON-CO-NET, a network connecting the regional and peripheral centres, facilitating telemedicine services and continued medical education. We have also initiated a Health Minister’s Cancer patient fund with a corpus of Rs.100 crores to help poor cancer patients.”
 He said more than 50 per cent of cancers among men and 25 per cent of cancers among women are related to tobacco consumption in India.
 Regarding mental health, according to National Institute of Mental and Neuro- Sciences (NIMHANS) estimates, we are already faced with a burden to manage the nearly 100 million people, with neuro-psychiatric and substance abuse problems, he added.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 7 Apr 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 7 Apr 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 8 Apr 2010 00:00:00 IST