At least 5 million Tanzanians suffer from serious cases of hypertension, the Ministry of Health reveals.
Assistant Director in the Department of Non-Communicable Diseases in the Ministry of Health, James Kiologwe maintains that the figure accounts for 26 percent of the country’s population.
According to Kiologwe, there are 1 million other Tanzanians experiencing diabetic diseases, while more than 40,000 cases of cancer get reported each year.
“They are all lifestyle diseases, it is high time that Tanzanians change the way they live, work and eat,” warns the Director of Health, pointing out excess usage of alcohol, nicotine and chemical-based drugs.
But other causes include lack of physical exercises, especially among people working while seated behind desks in offices.
Lack of exercises may also apply to long distance bus and truck drivers, especially in this age of highly automated vehicles.
Non-Communicable diseases, according to the Ministry of Health, cost the country more than 2.8 trillion/- in treatment and interventions.
Kiologwe was addressing medical workers in Arusha during the training session on how to handle cases of non-communicable diseases.
Medical practitioners in the country are being trained on ways of raising awareness regarding the dangers of indulgence and other negative styles of living in order to reduce the rate of non-communicable diseases.
It has come to light that most people suffer such diseases due to ignorance. The other thing is, people should know that Non-Communicable diseases kill.
For the medical workers, they are also supposed to learn proper ways of handling patients and treatment of such maladies.
The state, through the ministry of health and the local government ministry intends to train more than 2632 medical workers serving in public hospitals on issues of Non-Communicable diseases by December in the year 2023.
The Manager in Charge of Project planning in the Non-Communicable Diseases, Valeria Milinga said for starters a total of 360 health personnel have been trained in Arusha.
The target is to reach at least 600 health centres in the country.
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