The Health Department is organising a major campaign to create awareness on non communicable diseases (NCD) and to prepare a population-based registry of NCDs through community-level screening.
All persons above 30 years in the State will be screened for NCDs and the data collated and managed through a mobile application developed by e-health Kerala. Accredited Social Health Workers will visit homes for data collection and screening.
This will help the State have an accurate estimate of the population prevalence of various NCDs, allow the health system follow-up each person at the grassroots level, and help every individual control their disease better
The campaign will create awareness on all NCDs, including diabetes, hypertension, COPD, and its risk factors as well as breast/oral/cervical cancers, which are amenable to early detection through screening.
The idea is to encourage people to make lifestyle modifications through the proper understanding of risk factor reduction so that they do not develop complications later.
The Health Department is already implementing various initiatives under its NCD programme, for the comprehensive management of various lifestyle diseases.
Between 2018-2021, the State has screened 1.48 crore persons and has detected over 2.2 lakh cases of diabetes and over 3.36 lakh cases of hypertension.
All persons, approximately 3.5 lakh persons with diabetes/ hypertension or both, who are registered in the public health facilities are being offered free treatment by the State, including necessary drugs as well as insulin.
The training programme for health workers prior to the launch of the campaign will be inaugurated by Health Minister Veena Goerge on Tuesday.
