The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

An international study on managing non-communicable diseases suggests that lessons learnt from it can be replicated to other developing countries including Bangladesh to fight diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, asthma, epilepsy and mental illnesses.

The study conducted by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) in sub-Saharan Africa said its findings would act as a major breakthrough in treating patients of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), burden of which has recently surpassed communicable diseases in Bangladesh.

According to the World Health Organiation, Bangladesh has an epidemiological transition where the burden of NCDs overtakes communicable and infectious diseases in recent years.

As a result, the number of patients as well as the prevention and treatment cost for NCDs turned higher than that of infectious diseases, notably for TB, HIV, malaria and diarrhoea.

The study, expected to come this month's PLoS Medicine Journal and available here, suggested new programmes for NCDs should be piloted in one or two facilities in a country, and lessons learnt from these facilities can be used to assist national roll- out within the public sector.

Prof. Donald Enarson, senior Advisor at the Union, said sub-Saharan Africa faces frequent stock interruptions of essential drugs to manage non-communicable diseases, and many patients have extremely short life expectancies.

Patients with asthma are still receiving sub-standard care and have poor access to essential medications, he said, adding identical situations would be found in many other developing and under developed countries around the world.

Prof Anthony Harries, co-author of this study, added that many lives could be saved by adopting standardised approaches which identify, treat, supervise and allow follow up through better management of patients.

He said anti-tuberculosis programmes could be a good example of controlling non-communicable diseases including cancer and urged health care professionals and policy makers to learn from it.

The TB control programmes widely seen as an effective global public health intervention which marked success because it has gained political commitment, use simple testing for diagnosis, provide treatment with standardised course of medicine, ensure uninterrupted supply of medications with a strong monitoring and evaluation system.

The Public Library of Science, committed to making world's scientific and medical literature a free public resource, said a better management can be achieved in treating NCDs by learning from the success of TB control programmes.

This study, it said, is expected to have an enormous impact on learning more about management of NCDs around the world where poor health care delivery systems and unavailability of drugs are in urgent need of improvement.

The Union, synonymous to IUATLD, is the only international voluntary scientific organisation providing a neutral platform to fight TB, HIV, asthma, tobacco and lung disease since 1920.