Africa-Press – Botswana. Minister for State President, Mr Kabo Morwaeng has encouraged members of the public to adopt healthy lifestyles to lead quality lives.
Minister Morwaeng said this at Kopong during the launch of Positive Choices campaign which was held under hashtag Living NCDs Free campaign recently.
The initiative was made possible by Bona Naledi in partnership with the National AIDS and Health Promotion Agency (NAHPA).
“The initiative is aimed at spreading the gospel of combating the spread of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and targeting everyone, whether young or old,” the minister said.
He stated that globally, it was reported that NCDs contributed about 41 million deaths each year translating to 74 per cent of all deaths.
Out of that number, he said 17 million were people who died from such diseases before the age of 70 years.
“Sadly this means that these are premature deaths,” he stated, adding most of them occurred in low and middle-income countries, including Botswana.
Further, he said the top four diseases which accounted for more deaths were cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases.
The campaign, he said, was further aimed at enlightening the public about associated risk factors so that responses may be aligned to avoidance of such risk.
Consequently, he said the sad reality was that many people succumbed to such diseases although they could be drastically reduced.
“Re kgona go jewa ke dijo tse re di jang,” he said emphasising that prevention was better than cure as he appealed to everyone to embrace and heed the call and ensure that they prevented and managed the risk factors while monitoring their health.
As a result, he said government through NAHPA, was committed to working with civil society organisations to attain the goals of the 2030 development agenda which sought to develop ambitious national responses to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one-third by the year 2030 through prevention and treatment.
Social media influencer and also a nutritionist, Dr Malebogo Eluya similarly encouraged everyone to eat healthy. She said diet should not be that expensive because traditional cuisine such as staple food was healthy if taken in appropriate amounts.
For her part, Lentsweletau-Mmopane Member of Parliament, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja commended the collaborative efforts of NAHPA in bringing all stakeholders and communities on board the fight against the spread of NCDs.
Presenting NAHPA’s mandate the organisation’s representative, Mr Ontiretse Letlhare said in 2018, government took a decision to expand the mandate of the then National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), to include the fight against NCDs, which were spreading among the population at the time.
That, he said led to the re-naming of the organisation to focus on the prevention of diseases through intensive public awareness.
In addition, he said since NAHPA coordinated the response, the actual implementation was done by other partners who included civil society organisations.
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