ZIMBABWE is facing a surge in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in children, especially those involved in drug abuse, an official has said.
Speaking during a recent multi-country training workshop on Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) in Harare, World Health Organisation (WHO) NCDs point person Tsitsi Siwela said the growing drug abuse scourge was worsening the already dire situation among children.
The training came as Zimbabwe is grappling with NCDs in children. Such NCDs as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease are the number one cause of death and disability in the world, collectively accounting for 74% of all global deaths.
“We don’t have data on adolescents particularly looking at the NCDs, substance abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, physical activity, some of those protective factors, sexual and reproductive health, all those important factors that affect our health, we don’t have data on that,” she said.
“It will be good to conduct this survey and have current data to inform policies. This is really an important workshop. NCDs are increasing, (and) it’s now the new epidemic I must say. We used to talk about infectious diseases but now we need to also focus on NCDs, hypertension, diabetes, mental health, all those NCDs.”
She believes the rise in drug and substance use disorders was partly precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and government needed every support it can get in formulating abuse policies.
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“Otherwise we will be shooting in the dark or we might implement policies that are not so relevant. We can develop the right policies and implement them,” she said.
Siwela pointed out that government needed to engage the WHO and other such partners as United Nations Children's Fund and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for funding since its thin budget has other competing needs which include eradication of malaria and others.
Addressing the same meeting, an official from the Health and Child Care ministry Natasha Muziringa said: “Currently, we have mental health challenges among adolescents, which I think are under diagnosed or the diagnosis is poor because we have shortage of health personnel.”
“Most mental health programmes are not encompassed in the school curriculum. I think this will be a very good exercise which will highlight the correct position on the ground. The issue of NCDs is fast becoming a great challenge especially amongst children,” she said.
The GSHS is a collaborative surveillance project designed to help countries measure and assess the behavioural risk factors and protective factors in 10 key areas among young people aged 13 to 17 years.
It is a relatively low-cost school-based survey which uses a self-administered questionnaire to obtain data on young people’s health behaviour and protective factors related to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among children and adults worldwide.