New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry launched an ambitious initiative of screening and putting 75 million people with hypertension and diabetes on Standard Care by 2025, to mark the World Hypertension Day on Wednesday.
This was announced at the G20 co-branded event ‘Accelerating the Prevention and Management of Hypertension and Diabetes’, organized by Union Health Ministry and WHO by Dr. V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog in the presence of Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary and S Gopalakrishnan, Special Secretary, Health Ministry. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, WHO and Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Director, WHO SEARO virtually addressed the event.
Highlighting the innovative scheme, Dr Paul stated that this will be the largest expansion of NCDs in primary health care programme in the world with a community based approach starting at the primary healthcare level.
This indicates clear resolve of the government to address NCDs by allocating resources, capacity enhancement, mobilization and multi-sectoral collaboration, he said. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister, India is determined to become a developed nation in the next 25 years in the Amrit Kaal.
“Towards this goal, India is making efforts to achieve results in social indicators like life expectancy, maternal mortality rate, NCDs at par with developed nations”, he stressed.
The Outcome Budget document of Union Budget 2023-2024 has for the first time introduced hypertension and diabetes treatment as output indicators reflecting reflects the government’s commitment to scale-up hypertension and diabetes coverage services.
Dr Paul mentioned that the battle against NCDs have to be fought through the primary healthcare level and pointed out that India has created a platform to fight the menace through the creation of more than 1.5 lakh HWCs and operationalization of telemedicine and digital health services.
To accelerate the prevention and management of Hypertension, Dr V K Paul urged State teams to adhere to all SOPs especially the screening SOPs correctly at the grassroots since screening is the bedrock of successful management of any disease.
However, he noted that only screening is not enough.
Detection should lead to outcomes.
He therefore urged all stakeholders to ensure that at least 80 per cent of the diagnosed people are under treatment.
The need for private sector engagement in this effort and the contribution of academic and research sector in creating models and different building blocks for achieving the ambitious targets were also emphasised.
Dr Paul also emphasized that greater effort should be put in prevention which includes lifestyle changes through eating good food, exercising and other wellness practices.
He highlighted the need for a Jan Andolan to make this effort more visible through community participation; and on the need for countries to work together and share each other’s successes in the spirit of ‘One Earth, One Health’.