The Government of Puducherry has announced a partnership with global healthcare major Abbott, to study and implement initiatives against non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidaemia, including cholestrol and related disorders, and thyroid disorders in the Union Territory of Puducherry.
The three-year-agreement is to improve the awareness of NCDs and also to screen and monitor over 700,000 people, the general population in Puducherry to create data on disease prevalance. The data would help the government create health risk maps to forecast the burden of these non-communicable diseases, facilitate early intervention, and ultimately help reduce disease burden in the Union Territory.
The health assessment tool would also help healthcare providers in Puducherry to assess health risks at the individual level and support the public health ecosystem to create a personalised care plan as part of preventive healthcare.
The assessment of population-level data of diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and thyroid disorders would reveal the likely disease pattern over a period of three years, enabling a targeted approach to reduce the disease burden, reducing the social and economic burden in the Union Territory, stated an announcement from the company.
N Rangaswamy, chief minister of Puducherry, said, "The partnership with Abbott is one of the first in the country for a state or Union Territory to build awareness, provide treatment and better manage chronic diseases for its citizens, using its existing public health infrastructure. This partnership will not only improve patient outcomes, but also help address the growing disease burden and the associated economic burden on Puducherry."
Abbott, in its statement said that the NCDs are having a growing impact on the social and economic scenario of India. For instance, India has an estimated 61.3 million people living with diabetes, which is almost 17 per cent of the global diabetic population. Another 77.2 million people in India are at the risk of developing diabetes. The company quoted an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study which suggests that the country's incidence rate for dyslipidaemia is estimated to be 37.5 per cent amongst adults aged between 15-64 years. Thyroid disorders in India is affecting around 11 per cent of adult population.
