“Lifestyle” Disease Takes its Toll on Western Pacific

Added by Monique Robinson on October 11, 2010

Diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and stroke are all avoidable diseases but are being considered one of the reasons the economy is failing in Western pacific. This report was given by World Health Organization on Sunday, October 10, 2010.

WHO’s director, Dr Shin Young-soo said that most of the deaths in Western Pacific are caused by these “lifestyle” diseases. She also said that most of those dying with Non-communicable diseases are still productive and so this is not only being considered a health problem but an economic one.

According to WHO, the number of deaths caused by harmful habits such as smoking and lack of work-outs has raised in the last ten years. The affected region consists of up to 37 countries and the damage caused from lost productivity adds up to $550 billion.

Over 20,000 people die each day from these diseases in Western Pacific, all of them being under the age of 70.

Any person below the age of 70 is considered economically productive and these analyses have raised alarm on how health budgets should be spent so as to tackle with this problem.

According to WHO, something has to be done to help reduce the number of those dying from NCDs and at the same time help the economy.