Staff Reporter :
Bangladesh is alarmingly witnessing a high fatality rate of about 70% from non-communicable diseases (NDCs), as recent trends indicate, prompting experts to stress the importance of establishing a health promotion body to curb such deaths.
Public health experts gathered at a journalists’ workshop in the capital on Thursday to emphasise the need for establishing a health promotion foundation, following the examples set by countries like Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and Thailand.
They emphasised that establishing a health promotion body is essential for sustainable health development and effectively combating the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Bangladesh.
According to the experts, NCDs, including heart diseases, stroke, cancer, kidney diseases, respiratory diseases, diabetes, and hypertension, collectively account for an overwhelming 70% of total deaths in the country.
They also highlighted tobacco and alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption, and air pollution as major risk factors for NCDs that can be reduced through lifestyle changes implemented via health promotion programmes.
Such programmes, they argued, could be ensured and implemented by a promotional authority, a strategy successfully employed by Thailand and other countries.
Experts said those things at a workshop titled ‘Health Promotion for Sustainable Health Development: Bangladesh Perspective,’ organised by research and advocacy organisation PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress), with support from Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), and held at the BMA Bhaban in the capital on Tuesday.
A total of 25 journalists from both print and TV media participated in the workshop.
Eminent economist Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, present as the Chief Guest, highlighted the significance of utilising the Tk400 crore collected annually from the Health Development Surcharge (HDS) on health development programmes.
“Establishing an independent authority for health promotion programmes and allocating such a substantial amount through this body would undoubtedly benefit the country,” Dr. Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad remarked.
Dr. Md. Enamul Haque, Director General (Additional Secretary) of the Health Economics Unit at the Health Services Division, echoed the sentiment, emphasising the necessity of establishing a coordinating body for sustainable development of the health sector.
PROGGA’s programme head, Hasan Shahriar, underscored the urgency of taking coordinated efforts to establish an independent health promotion body to contain the high fatality rate from NCDs, suggesting that reducing the ever-increasing out-of-pocket expenditure (OOP) in Bangladesh could be easier through the formation of such an authority.
According to a study conducted by the WHO in 2020, the current out-of-pocket expenditure in Bangladesh is almost 74%, with two-thirds of the amount spent on medication.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), ‘Health Promotion’ is the process of empowering people to enhance control over and improve their health.
Notable speakers at the event included Gaous Pearee, Director, Work for Better Bangladesh (WBB), Mortuza Haider Liton, Convener, Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA), Nadira Kiron and Mizan Chowdhury, both co-conveners, ATMA, and ABM Zubair, Executive Director, PROGGA, among others.
