The first Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Non Communicable Disease Control was held in Moscow on 28th and 29th April 2011. Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare led the Indian delegation at the conference. 160 countries including Health Ministers from 94 countries participated in this two day global conference. The Conference was held to raise political awareness about the importance and potential of prevention and control of non communicable diseases and place them higher on the global and national political agenda. The meeting highlighted the need for strengthening inter-sectoral prevention efforts and health management at global and national levels.
Speaking at the plenary meeting, Shri Azad highlighted the efforts made by government of India to combat the Non Communicable Diseases in the country.
He mentioned that greatest challenge faced by India is the ever growing population. India is a country of 1.2 billion people. 200 million people have been added in the last decade. Shri Azad said, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) need long term management, care and affordable medication.To manage and administer wide range of communicable and non communicable diseases, we require a huge number of health professionals at all levels.
Shri Azad informed the august gathering that India started the process of providing affordable health care through investing in National Rural Health Mission five years ago. The Central Government has spent 25 billion dollars during last 5 years for upgrading infrastructure, providing trained manpower and making available affordable drugs to rural India.
We have also created an 800 000 strong cadre of women health workers called Accredited Social Health Activists, the acronym ASHA translates in many Indian languages as ‘hope’, and we expect in our campaign to combat NCDs to follow a similar approach.
We are, for instance, starting opportunistic screening of the population to assess NCD risk factors. This will start in 100 rural Districts and 30 urban pockets to begin with and then be scaled up to all the 640 Districts in the country. In the first phase, we shall be screening approximately 200 million people. The data will be kept on name based tracking system which will help us to devise treatment strategies for the future. To tackle the Non Communicable diseases arising out of Tobacco use and alcohol require Shri Azad highlighted the importance of wholehearted participation of other sectors of the economy including Agriculture, Industry, Rural development, Food processing, Nutrition, Transportation Environment and Education.
The Union Minister also chaired the panel discussion on Alcohol. In his remarks, Shri Azad said, Alcohol and its harmful use causes an estimated 2.5 million deaths every year. What is unfortunate, is that a significant portion of those who die on account of alcohol abuse are the young. Alcohol has devastating impact on individuals, families, communities, societies and the country at large. It creates impoverishment among people and their families. Alcohol use has shown violence against women and children, destroying family life. Drunk driving, particularly of heavy passenger vehicles cause death to millions of innocent people on roads and highways.
As in other countries of the world, the alcohol prevalence has grown considerably in India as well. The average age of initiation of alcohol which was 28 years in 80s in my country, has come down to 17 years. This means that even school going children are now consuming alcohol. Though no nation-wide data is available, it is estimated that India has around 70 million alcohol consumers of which 12 million are dependent on alcohol. Large part of this are from the weaker and vulnerable sections of the society.
He said, national and local efforts can produce better results when they are supported by regional and global action within agreed policy frame work. It is important to raise awareness, about the magnitude and nature of the social and economic problems caused by harmful use of alcohol.
Shri Azad highlighted the fact that whatever efforts we might make to reduce the consumption of tobacco and alcohol, they will prove futile as long as governments across the world use these two areas for revenue generation by levying taxes. Therefore, it is most appropriate that such fora of international level should give a clarion call to heads of state and governments to persuade their respective finance ministers to look for alternate arrangements for mobilising resources instead of collecting taxes on alcohol and tobacco products.
During the visit, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, also had discussions with H.E. Ms. Tatiana Golikova, Minister of Health & Social Development of the Russian Federation, regarding bilateral cooperation between India and Russia in the pharmaceuticals & bio-pharmaceuticals sector. Both the Ministers noted with satisfaction the growth in export of pharmaceutical products from India to Russia as well as recent efforts by Indian companies to actively collaborate with Russian companies with the aim of participating in the Pharma 2020 Programme of the Russian Federation. Both sides agreed to hold technical-level consultations between the Health Ministries of India and Russia to identify further ways to enhance cooperation in this sector.
