Kerala Being Infected by New Diseases and Infections

8 April 2013
Thiruvananthapuram

Having boasted about health indicators comparable to the West and rested on past laurels for nearly four decades, the state is now faced with the shocking reality of lifestyle and communicable diseases snuffing out lives and rendering existing health care services ineffective. The people of Travancore and Cochin had always enjoyed much lower levels of mortality and higher life expectancy since the time of the maharajas.

According to estimates, 180 out of every 1000 people in the state are morbid due to one or the other chronic illness. Heart disease prevalence is 12 per cent in urban areas and 7.5 per cent in rural and diabetes is alarmingly high at nearly 20 per cent.Experts say the entire health policy needs an overhaul .Infectious diseases are recurring alarmingly every year. We are good at crisis management , but don’t have a long term strategy. We boast of health indicators comparable to the West but conveniently forget that they have eradicated infectious diseases,’’ notes Prof V Raman Kutty of the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Sciences.

The time for taking precautions has clearly arrived as the health projections for 2020 are alarming. The risk burden in the age group 20-59 (in millions) for smoking in males is 4.5, for hypertension, 3.52 , for diabetes, 2.26, and high cholestrol,4.5.

Source – http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130407/news-current-affairs/article/kerala-caught-between-infections-new-age-ills

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