Campaign to address non-communicable disease launched

Jun 13, 2011 News

Text to save lives…

By texting ‘YES’ to 1155 from your Digicel mobile phone, Guyana is looking to contribute close to one million (1,000,000) messages which is expected to be collected by Caribbean policy makers, who can safeguard the health populace against tobacco use.
The text messages which are free of cost are being collected to ask each of our CARICOM leaders to attend a special United Nations Summit that could help save millions of lives.
According to Darshanand Rampersaud, the Project Officer for the Caribbean Tobacco Control Project at the Chest Clinic the campaign is being dubbed ‘Get the Message’ and Guyanese are asked to definitely get in the game.
Rampersaud disclosed that the ‘Get the Message’ campaign is being coordinated by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (H.C.C.), a group of non-governmental organisations around the Region, which includes the Guyana Chest Society and the Caribbean Tobacco Control Project.
Rampersaud told Kaieteur News that the United Nations General Assembly has agreed that non-communicable diseases (NCD) are perilous and kill so many people, that the world leaders are expected to address it at a high-level meeting in September in New York.
Heart attacks, strokes, cancers and diabetes are the leading NCD killers, which are exaggerated by smoking cigarettes, physical inactivity and alcohol abuse, Rampersaud explained.
Those diseases, he says, kill more people than HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis combined.
He further told Kaieteur News that the goal is to improve the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases which account for 60 percent of deaths globally through increased funding.
Rampersaud said that every member of the Guyanese public can take part in the campaign which urges the Head-of-State and other senior Government officials to attend.
Persons are also urged to log into social networking website “Facebook” at “www.facebook.com/get the message” and click on “like”.
According to the coordinator, too many families are affected by the preventable loss of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters to these diseases.
“Guyanese can make a difference by ‘getting the message’ and texting in your support and ensuring that the Caribbean has a healthy future,” Rampersaud posited.
Rampersaud has also been advocating for Graphic pictures of throat cancer and rotting teeth among other diseases related to tobacco smoking to be shown on cigarette boxes, in an effort to reduce the smoking epidemic.
He said that recent studies conducted have shown that 90 percent of society has welcomed the picture-based warnings.
Rampersaud has been upping the ante against tobacco consumption as part of the efforts to raise awareness about the drug.
Health warnings on cigarette packages were introduced in the 1960s and are now found in many countries worldwide, but Rampersaud said the warnings are outdated.

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Campaign to address non-communicable disease launched

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