Govt launches health plan for those above 30 years

Aiming to reduce on the rise disease burden, the Health Ministry on Tuesday launched a comprehensive door-to-door screening programme to monitor blood pressure, blood sugar as well as cancer antigens among above 30 years.

The objective behind introducing such a huge screening programme is find out people suffering from hypertension and other non-communicable diseases (NCD) at its initial stage. "The NCD diseases which are increasing day-by-day due to change in lifestyles and early detection of such diseases would help the agencies to cure. It's easy to cure a disease at its initial stage, but it becomes really challenging when the disease becomes chronic," Union Health Minister JP Nadda said.

Under the universal screening scheme, the tests would be done to diagnose hypertension, diabetes and three common cancers -- cervix, breast and oral cavity. The health volunteers would be provided with a testing kit as it was provided in case of polio immunisation drive. The government would take the services of ASHA workers for the door-to-door screening.

The programme would be launched in different phases. In the first phase, the government has planned to screen everyone (male and female) above 30 years in 100 districts of the country and gradually it will cover the entire country. The aim is to cover over 50 crore people under the programe.

Outlining the achievements of the ministry under NDA regime, Nadda said, "In the last three years our efforts have been towards building a 'Swasth Bharath'. Prevention of diseases and timely intervention will always remain in the forefront, whether for communicable or non-communicable diseases."

"NCDs are acquired lifestyle ailments, which places a very high burden through the healthcare cost. The Health Ministry is working through a two-pronged strategy, which include healthy children through the total immunisation programme," Nadda said while launching the training programme for universal screening.

"Much progress has been made in the past two years and now NCD clinics have been operational in more than 400 districts. We have adopted 10 national targets in our action plan to prevent and control NCDs," Nadda said, adding that 20 state cancer institutes and 50 tertiary care cancer centres (TCCCs) are being set up for providing comprehensive cancer care. Present on the occasion, MoS Health & Family Welfare Anupriya Patel said, "The challenge and threat from NCDs has increased manifold and around 90 lakh people die every year due to these diseases."

Patel further added that about 7 crore people are suffering from diabetes, while around 7-8 crore from cardiovascular diseases and some 13 lakh patients of cancer are added every year.