WHO sees 'global epidemic' of chronic disease

GENEVA - Developing countries can tackle a "global epidemic" of chronic disease by adopting cheap measures that have helped cut heart disease deaths in some rich nations by up to 70 percent, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

In a report published yesterday, the WHO said nearly half of all deaths from heart disease, cancer, respiratory infections, strokes and diabetes -- to which about 35 million people will succumb this year -- were preventable.

The report, "Preventing Chronic Diseases -- a Vital Investment", said developing countries, where most such deaths occur, must copy Western nations by discouraging tobacco use and curbing salt, sugar and saturated fats in food.

"Today we have a major epidemic and we know that if nothing is done, it will evolve rapidly and even more dramatically," Catherine Le Gales-Camus, WHO assistant director-general of non-communicable disease, told a news briefing.

The WHO, a United Nations agency, said its goal was to prevent the deaths of 36 million people by 2015, by reducing death rates from chronic disease by 2 percent each year.

"It is achievable. We want to stop people dying at an early age, prematurely and painfully, from a preventable condition," said Robert Beaglehole, WHO's director of chronic diseases and health promotion.

Eighty percent of all heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes cases, and over 40 percent of cancer cases, could be prevented, the report said.

Chronic disease also has a huge economic impact. The WHO estimates that such illnesses will cost China US$558 billion over the next decade, the Russian Federation US$303 billion and India US$237 billion.

Low and middle income countries, where the epidemic is worst, need to look to the example of industrialised nations. Some 80 percent of deaths from chronic diseases occur in developing countries, and half are women.

"There is a very pervasive misunderstanding that chronic diseases affect only wealthy men in wealthy countries," Beaglehole said.

Alerting the public to the dangers of high cholesterol levels or blood pressure have paid off in Western countries, the report said. Heart disease death rates have fallen by up to 70 percent in the last three decades in Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States.

Poland lowered death rates among young adults by 10 percent per year in the 1990s at low cost, mainly by ensuring fruits and vegetables were available and by removing subsidies on butter which made it competitive with healthier vegetable oils, according to Beaglehole.

Over one billion people worldwide are overweight or obese -- putting them at risk of deadly heart disease --- and the figure could rise to 1.5 billion in a decade, the report warned.

About 22 million children under age five are overweight.

Child obesity was "a number one public health problem," and talks are scheduled next week with the food and beverage industry to discuss a "plan of action", Le Gales-Camus said.

"Reports of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents -- previously unheard of -- have begun to mount worldwide," the WHO report said, referring to a form of the disease previously known as adult-onset diabetes.

Wang Longde, China's vice-minister of health, said in an introduction to the report: "We have an obesity epidemic, with more than 20 percent of our 7-17 year old children in urban centres tipping the scales as either overweight or obese".

- REUTERS