01 Mar 2016

The general manager of Boteti Mining Mr Gerald Ndlovu says behaviour change is a corner stone in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.

Mr Ndlovu  who was speaking during the SADC healthy lifestyle day commemoration in Rakops  on Friday,  stated that many health problems could be prevented or at least their occurrence delayed by developing a healthy lifestyle.

He noted that the overall result of what people eat and drink, to how much they exercise, and smoke or take drugs, would all have an effect in ones’ health in terms of life expectancy, or  experience a miserable living condition if one acquired a chronic disease.

“We also know that it is a busy life for most of us and keeping ourselves healthy is all too rarely near the top of our list of things to do,” he said.

Mr Ndlovu highlighted that a survey carried out in 2007 and 2014 in Botswana to assess the prevalence of risk behaviours for non-communicable diseases indicated that there was no difference in behaviour changes between these two years.

Batswana, he said, were still engaged in excessive alcoholic drinking, tobacco use and consumption of unhealthy diets as well as not being physically active.He urged the public to make’ keeping healthy’ a part of their day to day living habits.

Mr Ndlovu indicated that a healthy lifestyle was absolutely vital, adding  that whatever an individual’s age, fitness level or body shape, it is never too late to start thinking about living healthily.

He further informed members of the public that Ministry of Health did not have an infinite budget to address all health related issues; hence the onus is on each individual, stakeholder to invest in one’s general health.

An official from the Ministry of Health Mr Setshwano Mokgweetsinyana stated that non-communicable diseases have become the world’s biggest killers and a major challenge to development in the 21^st century.

Mr Mokgweetsinyana said the rapidly increasing burden of diseases was affecting poor and disadvantaged populations disproportionately, contributing to widening health gaps between and within countries.

He noted that for developing countries, which are still grappling with major communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the rapidly increasing burden of non-communicable diseases means developing countries are experiencing a double burden of disease.

This, he said had very serious implications for overall socio-economic and human capital development.

The good news, he said was that non-communicable diseases were easily preventable.

He highlighted that up to 80 per cent of heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes, and over a third of cancers could be prevented by eliminating the major shared risk factors, mainly tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol.

The world Health Organisation, he said estimated that collectively, every year non-communicable diseases kill three out of five people in the world which translated in to approximately 36 million deaths annually, representing 63 per cent of deaths worldwide.

He said tobacco and alcohol advertising needed stringent regulation within and between countries.

The day was commemorated under the theme, Risk factors of today are tomorrow’s diseases. Ends