More Africans at risk of chronic illness – WHO

NAIROBI: City life and its modern trappings have brought bad habits to developing African nations that will see more die of chronic illness than infectious diseases by 2030, a study showed yesterday.

A World Health Organization ( WHO) survey of 33 countries has shown that most adults in Africa have at least one risk factor increasing their chance of developing deadly lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

These include smoking, harmful use of alcohol, a poor diet which does not include the recommended five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, and low levels of physical activity. Report author Abdikamal Alisalad told AFP that the level of unhealthy habits in many African nations had come as a shock.

“We were surprised because we thought we would not see this kind of situation currently. We were expecting it maybe 30 or 40 years from now,” he said.

Particularly disturbing was the fact that an estimated 46 percent of Africans suffer high blood pressure — the highest worldwide.

He attributes the rise in noncommunicable diseases to changes in developing societies.

“People are moving from the rural areas, going to urban, metropolitan areas. The middleincome group is growing, life expectancy is also growing.” While the tobacco, alcohol and food industries have had to adapt to growing health- consciousness in the West, this is not the case in Africa.

The WHO study found that daily tobacco use ranges from five to 26 percent in Africa, and is only growing. Cigarettes are often a fraction of the price in Africa than in Europe.