According to a press statement issued by Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez yesterday, PIHOA, during its 50th meeting in Palau last week, likened to earthquake and tsunami non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart and respiratory diseases and their risk factors such as obesity, alcohol and tobacco.
If unchecked, the Pacific health officials said, these non-communicable diseases will swamp national budgets, cut productivity and threaten the survival of Pacific people within just a few generations.
“Of all the nations of the world, Pacific Island countries and territories have among the highest rates of non-communicable diseases and their risk-factors,” PIHOA said.
“Our children are more obese and less active than in any other generation. We’ve had the earthquake, but the tsunami has yet to hit. Where is the warning system? Why aren’t the alarms going off?” asked PIHOA President Stevenson Kuartei, Palau’s health minister.
He urged everybody in the meeting to treat the high rates of non-communicable disease as an emergency.
The purpose of the meeting, PIHOA said, was to mobilize all the partners and develop “collective responses” to the crisis.
After the meeting, the participants came up with draft recommendation and work plans designed to improve coordination, increase resources and address the differences among development partners, other regional associations and PIHOA directors.
“We’ve got to get past this idea that the problem belongs to the health sector. We’ll never solve it that way,” Kuartei said.
The problems, he added, “belongs to all of you, to whole society. Every sector and every community needs to have a plan. What does trade needs to do to help solve this? How about agriculture fisheries, traditional leaders, our village councils, our schools and colleges? The people of the Pacific are dying and will die at much younger and at higher rates in the future if we don’t act now.”
