India facing growing health and economic burden of non-communicable diseases

Brazil, Russia, India and China, nicknamed the BRIC countries, are facing a health threat that is killing off citizens, hurting their work forces and could slow progress.  These middle-income nations all boast huge populations that helped power their ascent, but changes in lifestyle, urbanization, lack of exercise and diets are causing swift increases in non-communicable diseases.

Annual losses in national income from heart disease, stroke and diabetes are estimated at $18 billion in China, $11 billion in Russia, $9 billion in India and $3 billion in Brazil for 2005, and those numbers are only set to increase with current trends, according to the World Health Organization.

The following is an excerpt from a PBS NewsHour report on the emerging public health threat posed by non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Estimated non-communicable disease deaths in 2008: 5.2 million



Percentage of NCD deaths considered premature: 35

"We are faced with a triple burden of communicable disease, new and emerging infections and the increasing incidence of non-communicable disease," Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare of India, told the U.N. meeting. Among the BRIC countries India best illustrates the challenges faced by countries that still have large populations suffering from infectious disease, while also seeing non-communicable diseases rise, particularly in cities and among richer populations. Just over half of India's deaths are from non-communicable disease, while 37 percent are still from infectious disease, the WHO reports.

India also has the world's largest diabetic population, and getting insulin can be very hard for the majority of the population. Diabetes care can cost low-income households about one third of their incomes, reports the WHO.

Azad said the country is making moves to combat the swell, starting a $275 million pilot project this year for prevention and treatment of of cancer, diabetes and stroke. The program covers 150 million people in 100 of the country's least accessible districts. India aims to screen 150 million people for hypertension and diabetes by 2012.

"This would be the largest such exercise attempted anywhere in the world," Azad said.

He emphasized the role Indian companies have played in getting affordable medicines and technologies to countries around the world and advocated increased access to drugs for non-communicable diseases.

"We must therefore address the issue of trade barriers which restrict access to affordable and newly developed medicines," he said.