BAGUIO CITY — Officials of the Department of Health (DOH) and related agencies are in town Thursday and Friday to thresh out a national health plan that would prioritize efforts on the treatment and management of non-communicable diseases.

DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III, in a press conference told the press Thursday, the gathering of health agency heads here will draw up plans to address hypertensive and heart ailments; cancer; diabetes; and asthma.

Of late, health officials note, there are more deaths associated with non-contagious ailments. “These are preventable illnesses that may be associated with lifestyle,” DOH-Cordillera Regional Director Myrna Cabotaje claimed.

Although she did not mention figures, Cabotaje said there would be a shift in budget items with the re-gearing of efforts towards lifestyle-born ailments.

Duque said, there is a need for a massive information dissemination on the causes of these diseases that have been the major cause of deaths.

“People should watch their diet, cut down on alcohol intake, frown at tobacco or cigarettes and get more exercise,” Duque said.

Non-communicable diseases like heart condition and stroke are gradually replacing diarrhea, tuberculosis and infections as the chief killers globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in its report released in May this year.

“The shifting health trends indicate that diseases such as diarrhea, human-immuno virus (HIV), tuberculosis, infections in the newborn and malaria will kill fewer people than non-communicable diseases globally over the next 20 years,” the report said.

The trend as health officials observe is that fewer people would be dying of infectious diseases across the world, as shown by WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. # Lyn V. Ramo