25 Feb 2019

There is need to renew commitment to end the rising tide of non-communicable diseases, Miss Botswana 2018/19, Moitshepi Elias said.

Speaking at the SADC Lifestyle Day at Mabutsane on February 22, she said there was need for people to seriously reflect on their everyday actions and habits and how they would impact on their health and lives in future.

“Lifestyle plays a critical role in the development of non-communicable diseases,” she said.

She said the event theme ‘Risk Factors of Today are Diseases of Tomorrow,’ called for all to go back home and make necessary changes in their lifestyles.

“We also continue to hold, in high esteem, the slogan that we use for educating our people that go, ‘Now Your Health Matters’, which is a strategy to intensify early detection of non-communicable diseases as well as to reduce the consequences related to them,” she said.

Ms Elias noted that the world continued to see an exceptional rise in new cases of non-communicable diseases (NCD), which the World Health Organisation says are by far the cause of many deaths worldwide.

“In 2016 NCDs were responsible for 71 per cent of the 57 million deaths that occur globally. It is no wonder that non-communicable diseases are now a major problem in the SADC region, including right here in Botswana,” she said.

She noted that in the past, NCDs were thought to be diseases afflicting rich and middle income countries, but ‘according to countless studies lifestyle plays a critical role in the development of non-communicable disease’.

She indicated that there were four major risk factors that the NCD, and four major risk factors, which include unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, the use of tobacco and harmful use of alcohol.

Ms Elias said 80 per cent of the global burden of NCDs afflicted low and middle classes, and that NCDs are responsible for deaths related to cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, and diabetes.

She said NCDs did not just take lives, but take the young who are breadwinners.

She however said there was need for people to understand that NCDs are within their control, if they can do something about their diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption.

Ms Elias further noted that national surveys had been conducted to asses the burden of NCDs and risk factors, the most recent in 2014.

“This survey revealed that 18 per cent of Batswana aged 15 to 69 are current smokers, while 20 per cent do not engage in physical activity, and 95 per cent do not eat fruits and vegetables in their daily diet,” she said.

She cautioned that most NCDs did not present obvious signs and therefore it was important that people got screened for risk factors so that they could make right choices on time.

District Health Management Team member at Mabutsane, Mr Christopher Chembe, said the event was aimed at sensetising the community on NCDs and its risk factors, and to create a picture of the serious consequences that NCDs had on individuals, families, organisations and the entire world.

“This event is aimed at reinforcing the prevention message. It is meant to instill into the community the message that NCDs are preventable and must be prevented. It is a call for the community to arise,” he said. ENDS