ISLAMABAD (Web News )
South Asia only spends 2 percent of GDP on healthcare, lagging behind any other region in the world. Current health expenditure is inappropriate to meet the current and future challenges of health in the region. To become more viable country in health sector, we must have state-of-the-art health education, healthcare professionals, and proper research with adequate infrastructure, said Dr. Mobashir Ahmed Bhatti, while addressing COMSTECH webinar on “South Asia’s Health Care Challenges” held online on Wednesday.
Dr. Bhatti said A combination of genetic, physiological, lifestyle, and environmental factors can cause non-communicable diseases. He said, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease causing disease burden in south Asia.
He said, shifts in leading risk factors like dietary habits, tobacco use and high blood pressure are causing these diseases. He mentioned that industrialization, westernization of lifestyles and aging are health influencing factors.
Dr. Bhatti emphasized regional specific research and individualized healthcare. He said, personalized medicine is an emerging practice of medicine that uses an individual’s genetic profile to guide decisions made in regard to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease.
He said, that poorly controlled diabetes puts us at higher risk of certain infections, including some fungal ones.
He said that in Pakistan after 50 years of age, people start facing blood pressure issues. He suggested to improve the lifestyle and remove the causes of blood pressure which are not right food, oil and specifically the way we cook our foods. He recommended a committee of experts formed by the government with the mandate to ensure healthy food provision to the masses.
Dr. Mobashir Ahmed Bhatti is a medical doctor. He is founding president of Pakistan Association of Integrative Medicine and executive coaching lead for South Asian Academy of Physicians and Surgeons. He has worked in over a dozen countries setting up leadership, product, research and alliance teams. As a leadership and team development expert, now he is focused specially on health care sector and devoted his efforts to the need of forming an international team of professionals to work as a research and development group in compiling evidence-based empirical data that irrefutably establishes and documents global health issues.
This webinar was open to academicians, scientists, and general public from all the member OIC states. More than one hundred people attended this webinar online.