New Delhi, April 21 (AHN) Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said on Tuesday that the government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to combat Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) as these account for 60 per cent of the total deaths in the country.​

Chairing a session titled “Addressing Non-Communicable Diseases in India: From Preventive to Care” during the 18th Civil Services Day celebrations, Nadda emphasised the importance of the theme of the session and underlined the transition in India’s healthcare approach from preventive to curative care.​

He stated that “in 2017 we came out with a holistic and inclusive health policy, where we focused on preventive, promotive, curative, geriatric, rehabilitative, and palliative care.” ​

Nadda highlighted that the country has performed very well in communicable diseases, while non-communicable diseases (NCDs) require more focus, as outcomes in NCDs take longer, and there is a knowledge gap that needs to be addressed.​

He added that “in the National Programme for Prevention and Control of NCDs, the focus has been on strengthening infrastructure, early diagnosis and early detection, Health promotion and Management of the disease, and timely referral”.​

The Minister said, “Health promotion is certainly one of the major areas, and management of the disease and timely referral are also very important. So, these are the issues which we are trying to address as far as non-communicable diseases are concerned.”​

Nadda stated that “in the past six years, we have been able to set up more than 1.85 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, which are the first contact point between the 1.45 billion people and the health institutions.​

Each of these Ayushman centres has one ASHA worker, and wherever possible, other frontline health staff.”​

He added that “in 2017, we decided that we would go for voluntary and enhanced screening.” ​

Nadda also highlighted the positive outcomes of these efforts and stated that “we have developed around 107 non-communicable disease clinics at district-level points and 233 cardiac care units.”​

He also added that “in this budget itself, it has been announced that every district will have a day care cancer centre.”​

The Union Health Minister underscored the country's large-scale screening efforts to address NCDs.​

He emphasised that “since 2017, 41.5 crore people have been screened for hypertension, out of which 7.1 crore have been diagnosed and 5.7 crore people are notified.”​

He added, “We have tried to ensure early detection to help make India healthy. For example, 41.3 crore people have been screened for diabetes, out of which 4.7 crore people have been found diabetic and 3.4 crore people are being treated. For oral cancer, 35.3 crore people have been screened so far, and 2.3 lakh people have been detected with oral cancer, and around 2 lakh people are being treated. Over 16.5 crore have been screened for breast cancer.”​