The Director at the Directorate of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Santigie Sesay has called on authorities and partners to invest to address issues around Non-communicable Diseases and Injuries as the burden is already huge.
He made the plea at the launch of the NCD Strategic Plan and Policy and the NCDI findings and recommendations at the Hill Valley Hotel last Thursday in Freetown.
While updating participants on the findings of the NCDI Commission Report, Dr. Santigie said that 33.9% of all disabilities and 39.5% of all deaths were accounted for NCDs and injuries in 2017, adding that the burden of NCDs and Injuries has significantly had an upsurge in the past two decades.
The Director further disaggregated that there are 56.5% of NCD related disabilities and 78.4% of injury related disabilities in Sierra Leone which surprisingly accounted for people below age 40. “So, you see the issue of NCDs only associated to people at age 40 and above is gradually changing. It is also affecting our younger population” Added Dr. Sesay.
Dr. Santigie continued that only 36.7%of NCD related disabilities are attributed to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease that are included in the global NCD monitoring framework in Sierra Leone. However, a significant proportionof disabilities which are attributed to NCDs are also caused by mental disorder which stands at 7.4%, sickle cell, rheumatic heart disease.
He further educated that, though there are behavioral interventions that one could do to maintain health, behavioral and metabolic risk factors, such as alcohol, smoking, obesity, and hypertension, are not the only risk factors of NCDI and however the findings of the NCDI Report which states that other systematic risk factors related to poverty, environment, and chronic infections are also contributing factors to NCDIs in Sierra Leone.
Dr. Sesay called for more research on NCDI as the limited data on NCDIs, although data on NCDIs has been introduced and integrated into the HMIS, data collection must be strengthened to appropriately capture the burden of NCDs at facility level in the country.
He continued that the NCDI Report recommends the national agenda for NCDIs to be expanded to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), 38 potential interventions to be introduced or intensified within the health sector to target these NCDI priority conditions and that NCD intervention should be integrated throughout the health sector, including primary health delivery.
By Ibrahim Sorie Koroma, Health Education Officer-HED/MoHS
2/12/2020. ISSUE NO: 7961