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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
World Health Organization (WHO) said it has identified the reason for the rising cases of non-communicable diseases in Nigeria.
It confirmed that aside other factors like personal and environmental hygiene, poor record of physical activities and exercise among young people was significantly responsible for the increasing cases of non-communicable diseases and deaths in Nigeria.
WHO, thus recommended regular exercise and other healthy lifestyle as key measures to reducing the spread of non-communicable diseases in Nigeria.
WHO Country Representative, Dr. Walter Kazadi, told journalists at the third edition of the global “Walk the Talk” health challenge exercise in Abuja, at the weekend, that people between the ages of 30 to 69 die prematurely from non-communicable diseases in low and middle-income countries.
Kazadi added that the “Walk the Talk’ campaign was an initiative of the WHO to create awareness for people to engage in physical activities. “This is an initiative of the WHO to make everybody to know more about NCDs and its effect.
“Globally, the burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and chronic diseases are growing due to lack of physical activities. We do this once a year on the side to kick off World Health Assembly which is starting tomorrow.
“We want to add our contribution to that global campaign for everyone to become active as part of our effort to beat non-communicable diseases. This is what we should be doing every day for at least half an hour if we are to beat diseases.
“It is worthy of note that, non-communicable diseases also known as chronic diseases, tend to be of long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors.”
He challenged everyone to key into the campaign to ensure a healthy society and people that would meaningfully contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria and beyond.
