Asia-Pacific battles rising cancer, heart disease

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Asian and Pacific nations are struggling to stem the rise in cancer and Heart disease which kill 25,000 people a day in the region, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

A WHO report on non-communicable diseases in the Western Pacific, which stretches from China to Fiji, said health services could be overwhelmed by chronic diseases, many largely preventable, unless extra resources are quickly allocated.

"There appears a real danger of under-resourced health services in many transitional economies being overwhelmed by the demand for chronic illness care,” said the report at a WHO conference in Noumea, capital of New Caledonia in the Pacific.

“Non-communicable diseases, notably heart problems and cancer, already account for seven out of every 10 deaths in the Western Pacific region, and the situation is expected to worsen.”

The report assessed five nations, China, the Philippines, Samoa, Tonga and Vietnam, and found an increase in chronic non-communicable diseases.

In China, there was a 31-percent rise in High Blood Pressure, involving 160 million people over the age of 18, between 1991 and 2002, it said. In the six years to 2002 there was a 40-percent rise in Diabetes in China, involving some 20 million people.

Obesity in China had risen 97 percent, to involve 60 million people, between 1992 and 2002.

“Against this background, it appears that current responses at the country and global levels are fragmentary and insufficient to adequately address the dimensions of the problem.”

The report said ageing populations in Asia and the Pacific would only worsen the situation, warning that chronic diseases would place an economic burden on developing economies.

“Many countries in the region are at a critical point in the epidemiological transition and are already facing mounting pressures on their health care systems,” said the report.

“Chronic disease is also likely to have a significant impact on economic productivity. Of the expected nine million cardiovascular disease deaths in China in 2030, over one half will occur in the prime working ages 35 to 64,” it said. 

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