The figure of death cases due to cancer was released at the national scientific conference yesterday themed “Prevention of non-communicable” held by the Vietnam Medical Association and the Ministry of Health.
Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Viet Tien said that the health’s efforts to control non-communicable disease is unrewarded because infection cases of non-communicable disease is increasing at alarming rate across the country.
The root cause of the surge in infection cases of non-communicable disease is because of people’s low awareness of prevention. Around 45 percent of male still smoke and 77 percent of the population have alcohol.
Worse, people have improper diet with increase in the number of obese people. Rate of patients having high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer keep rising but just half of them receive early treatment.
Non-communicable diseases are the leading causes of death in the Southeast Asian country. Of ten deaths, seven of them die of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Surge in the number of cancer people is the most worrying now. Former director of Cancer Hospital in Hanoi Dr. Bui Dieu said Vietnam had 68,000 fresh cases of cancer in 2000 but it was 126,000 cases in 2010. It is forecast that it will be over 190,000 in 2020.
Noticeably, around 11,5 Vietnamese people die of cancer annually or over 310 of them die per day. Mr. Dieu also pointed out not only the number of cancer patient but also cost of treatment jump; accordingly, early detection will help save treatment time and cost.
According to the World Health Organization, the economic burden on households of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including Over 300 Vietnamese die of cancer daily, poses major challenges to global poverty alleviation efforts.
As per prediction, within next 20 years, non-communicable diseases will cause a loss of $47 trillion globally.
In Vietnam, non-communicable diseases cause 73 percent of deaths and 40 percent of them will die before the age of 70.