Emmie blog

SE Asia seen beset by chronic, costly diseases

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chronic illnesses including cancer, heart disease and stroke caused 2.6 million deaths, or 60 percent of all deaths, in Southeast Asia in 2005, and that will balloon to 4.2 million by 2030, researchers warned.

Apart from draining personal and household incomes, national incomes would be sapped in the form of lost lablaborour and savings, they said in a paper published as part of a special edition on Southeast Asia in The Lancet on Tuesday.

Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam were among the countries surveyed by the journal, which called for universal health coverage especially to protect the poor.

"A total of US$7 billion would be lost between 2006 and 2015 (to national incomes) because of chronic non-communicable diseases from just five ... countries: Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam," said a team led by Antonio Dans at the University of the Philippines' College of Medicine.

Dans's team, whose paper was the fourth in a six-paper series, said the estimate of $7 billion in loses was conservative as it did not include the costs of cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a growing problem that affects the respiratory system.

While the figure of 60 percent of deaths from chronic illnesses is lower than Europe's 86 percent and 78 percent in the United States, the health infrastructure in Asia is frail and the region is much less prepared to handle such illnesses which can be very expensive to treat.

As the diseases share common behavioral risk factors, such as smoking, excess weight, unhealthy diet and lack of exercise, proper surveillance was urgently needed so that intervention may be designed to mitigate the epidemic, they wrote.

In the second paper, researchers highlighted uneven progress in reducing maternal and child deaths in the region.

Although less than 10 children under 5 died for every 1,000 live births in Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia, the rate in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar was between 50 and 70, among the highest in Asia.

"Disparities exist in antenatal care coverage, use of skilled birth attendants, and diphtheria, polio, tetanus and measles vaccination together with use of oral rehydration therapy (for diarrhea), which are all key to the development of a continuum of care," said a team led by Cecilia Acuin of the Institute of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of the Philippines.

In the third paper, researchers warned that the region was a hot spot for emerging infectious diseases -- such as SARS and the H5N1 bird flu virus -- because of population growth and movement, urbanization, changes in food production and other factors.

"There has been substantial investment in surveillance capacity in recent years, but it remains weak in many areas," wrote the team led by Richard Coker of the Communicable Diseases Policy Research Group at Mahidol University in Thailand.

In the fifth paper, researchers said five countries -- Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam -- had insufficient healthcare workers, falling below the minimum requirement set by the World Health Organization at 2.28 doctors, nurses and midwives per 1,000 people.

"To meet the WHO threshold in these five countries, an estimated 884,868 health professionals would be needed, representing a shortfall of around 232,417 relative to the current workforce," wrote a team led by Churnrurtai Kanchanachitra from Mahidol University.

The region has different levels of health care from countries such as Laos and Cambodia, which depend on donor funding, to countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines where tax-funded health coverage is relatively extensive.

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Robert Birsel)