Countries in the Western Pacific will fail to meet the United Nations’ key goal of reducing premature deaths from lifestyle diseases by the end of this decade, the World Health Organization has warned.
Health authorities say alcohol and tobacco consumption make chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, stroke and heart attacks more difficult to manage, undermining efforts to reduce deaths by a third by 2030. He said that it has become.
“We don’t expect to meet the 2030 deadline,” Dr Kidon Park, WHO’s senior official for the Western Pacific region, told a briefing on Thursday, referring to one of the targets set in the Sustainable Development Goals. said.
“We need to reduce our alcohol intake further and further. We need to do even more to stop consuming tobacco.”
WHO’s diverse Western Pacific region is home to 1.9 billion people in 37 countries, from Australia to Japan and Cambodia to Fiji.
Infectious diseases and injuries were once the biggest causes of illness and death in the region, but now chronic lifestyle-related diseases, also known as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), account for more than 80% of deaths.
While most regions have made some progress in tackling these killers, in some countries, such as Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, premature deaths related to NCDs actually increased between 2000 and 2019. increased between.
Alcohol and tobacco use are the main culprits, according to a WHO health statistics report released Thursday ahead of a regional conference next week.
Alcohol consumption has increased by 40% across the region since 2000, although trends vary widely.
Tobacco use rates have fallen from 28% of adults in 2000 to 22.5% in 2022, but the UN agency warned that the rate remains higher than the global average. There are also concerns about the prevalence of e-cigarette smoking, including among children.
The report added that only Australia, New Zealand and Vanuatu levy taxes on both tobacco and alcohol at a “best practice” level of 75% of the retail price.
Still, other factors also contribute to the high number of NCD deaths in the region. 245 million people in the region are over the age of 65 and that number will double by 2050, yet air pollution remains well above recommended levels.
The WHO said mental health problems also hit hard in some countries, with “suicide rates at alarmingly high rates” due to “factors such as stigma, limited access to mental health services and socio-economic challenges”. He said he was giving.
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