What is the main health challenge in this article?
What has led to this in these situations?
What could the global community do to help these
people?
Answers
Explanation:
India is presently in a state of transition — economically, demographically, and epidemiologically — in terms of health. While the last decade has seen remarkable economic development particularly in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate,(1) unfortunately this progress is accompanied by growing disparities between the rich and the poor. There is strong evidence to suggest that this income inequality or disparity between the different socioeconomic classes is associated with worse health outcomes.(2) Widening the gap between the rich and the poor has damaging health and social consequences. While financial inclusion and social security measures are being implemented by the Government to bridge economic inequalities, health sector too must ensure that health disparities between and among social and economic classes are also addressed adequately.
The unprecedented demographic changes underway are likely to contribute to a substantially increased labor force. However, it will benefit the country only if the population is healthy. The country at present suffers from the triple burden of disease — the unfinished agenda of infectious diseases; the challenge of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), linked with lifestyle changes; and emergence of new pathogens causing epidemics and pandemics. In addition, the health infrastructure is already over-stretched and needs to be strengthened to enable it confront these challenges in the twenty-first century.
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The Health Challenges
In health sector, India has made enormous strides over the past decades. The life expectancy has crossed 67 years, infant and under-five mortality rates are declining as is the rate of disease incidence. Many diseases, such as polio, guinea worm disease, yaws, and tetanus, have been eradicated.
In spite of this progress, the communicable diseases is expected to continue to remain a major public health problem in the coming decades posing a threat to both national and international health security.(3) Besides endemic diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), tuberculosis (TB), malaria, and neglected tropical diseases, the communicable disease outbreaks will continue to challenge public health, requiring high level of readiness in terms of early detection and rapid response. In this regard, vector-borne diseases, such as dengue and acute encephalitis syndrome, are of particular concern. Antimicrobial resistance is one of the biggest health challenges facing humanity that must be tackled with all seriousness.
In addition, non-communicable diseases or NCDs are now the leading cause of death in the country, contributing to 60% of deaths.(4,5) Four diseases namely heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic pulmonary diseases contribute nearly 80% of all deaths due to NCDs and they share four common risk factors namely tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, and lack of physical activities.