Africa: Chronic Diseases on the Rise

By George Okore

United Nations statistical health report says no country in the world can address health from either an infectious disease perspective or a non-communicable disease one. “Everyone must develop a health system that addresses the full range of the health threats in both areas,” said the director of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Health Statistics and Informatics, Ties Boerma.

Based on more than 100 health indicators reported by WHO’s 193 Member States and other reliable sources, the WHO’s World Health Statistics 2011 is an annual report which provides a snapshot of the global health situation and key trends. In Kenya, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (CVPD) are on the rise as in many African countries and majority of CVPD deaths occur among people between 30 and 69.

In most African countries, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is now the second leading cause of death after infectious disease, accounting for 11 per cent of total deaths. The Global Burden of Disease Project estimates that between 1990 and 2020, the burden of CVD faced by African countries will double. In response, the American/Sub-Saharan Africa Network for Training and Education (ASANTE) Centre of Excellence was established in Eldoret, Kenya. The ASANTE centre will provide clinical, research, and training leadership in cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.

The 2011 report finds that non-communicable diseases, such as heart diseases, stroke, diabetes and cancer, now make up two-thirds of all deaths globally, due to the ageing population and the spread of risk factors associated with globalization and urbanization. The control of risk factors such as tobacco use, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet and excessive use of alcohol becomes more critical, it says, with the latest WHO figures showing that about four out of 10 men and one in 11 women use tobacco and about one in eight adults is obese.

In addition, many developing countries continue to battle health issues – such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria – that are most likely to kill children under five years of age. In 2009, 40 per cent of all child deaths were among newborns, aged 28 days or less. The report notes that much more needs to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate – but progress has accelerated.

Child mortality declined at 2.7 per cent per year since 2000, twice as fast as during the 1990s. Mortality levels among children under five years fell from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009.  Maternal mortality declined at 3.3 per cent per year since 2000, almost twice as fast in the decade after 2000 than during the 1990s.

The report also shows that more money is being spent on health and people can expect to live longer, with life expectancy in 2009 at 68 years, up from 64 years in 1990. But the gap in health spending between low- and high-income countries remains very large. In low-income countries especially in Africa, per capita, health expenditure is an estimated $32, or 5.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), and in high-income countries it is $4,590, or 11 per cent of GDP.

High-income countries have, per capita, on average 10 times more doctors, 12 times more nurses and midwives and 30 times more dentists than low-income countries. Virtually all deliveries of babies in high-income countries are attended by skilled health personnel; but this is the case for only 40 per cent of deliveries in low-income countries.

WHO’s release of its World Health Statistics 2011 coincided with the launch of its Global Health Observatory, a new website that serves as a one-stop shop for data and analyses on health priorities around the world. WHO said the observatory provides easy access to the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of health data, bringing together the organization’s data from all major health and disease programmes.