27 Feb 2017

Employees should keep healthy by eating well and exercising for them to be productive.

Speaking during a wellness week launch at the Ministry of Health and Wellness in Gaborone on February 23, a University of Botswana lecturer, Dr Marape Marape said there was an increase in cases of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer, which he said were caused by unhealthy diets, smoking and drinking alcohol.

He said studies showed that 35 per cent of deaths were caused by lifestyle diseases, 33 per cent of them being high blood pressure.

Dr Marape said most were undiagnosed although a large number of non-communicable diseases were easily preventable.

On the other hand, Dr Marape said Botswana had done well in fighting communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

He said the number of those diagnosed with communicable diseases had decreased due to government funding and international donors.

Dr Marape thus encouraged regular screening so that diseases could be detected at an early stage, further encouraging stakeholders to come together in the fight against non-communicable disease.

For his part, ECON-Deal managing director, Mr Tlhobelo Moshodi advised against overspending, saying financial education was important as it could help people deal with the problem of low productivity and corruption. ENDS