Health official stresses awareness campaigns
KUWAIT CITY, May 16, (KUNA): Director of the Health Promotion Department at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Abeer Al-Bahouh, stressed today, Monday, the importance of awareness campaigns related to chronic diseases and the risk factors that cause them to address those diseases that many members of society suffer from.
This came in a statement to reporters on the sidelines of the educational session held by the Health Promotion Department in the Ministry as part of the activities of the expanded campaign to raise awareness of chronic diseases at the Leaders Preparation Center in Al Khalidiya.
Al-Bahouh explained that chronic diseases are a global problem whose numbers have witnessed a remarkable increase since the last decades of the twentieth century.
In the Arab countries, changes in patterns of nutritional behavior and physical activity have led to developments in their rates and rise.
She added that chronic diseases in the Arab world pose a challenge to decision makers and health and medical strategists, pointing out that health care costs for chronic diseases put pressure on countries’ budgets, especially with the disease’s exacerbation and the development of its complications.
She pointed out the importance of providing primary health care to detect chronic diseases in their early stages before their development and to improve the quality of life of individuals and reduce the cost of subsequent treatment, which will be greater when the disease escalates and develops.
She pointed out that chronic diseases are usually silent and the patient may not notice them until after complications such as high blood pressure begin to occur.
She indicated that these diseases are linked to the nutritional and motor behavior of individuals and societies, for example diabetes, which is linked to overweight and obesity, and respiratory diseases that are linked to smoking, pointing out that its treatment usually extends throughout a person’s life.
Al-Bahouh stated that the course, in which about 70 participants participated, included several lectures revolving around the importance of preventing chronic diseases and reducing the risk factors that cause them, such as smoking, physical inactivity, obesity and unhealthy food.
She stated that the lecturers from the Department of Health Promotion provided a definition of chronic diseases and reviewed the information of the previous courses, indicating that the course would be over two days.
She pointed out that the course included a presentation of the most important developments in tuberculosis, asthma and others, and also included a health exhibition in which several departments affiliated with the ministry participated, including the Department of Nutrition and Feeding, the Department of Physiotherapy Services, the Tuberculosis Control Unit and others.