ISCHEMIC heart disease, diabetes, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease and cirrhosis are among the top causes of death in Pakistan.
Together, these are called non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as opposed to communicable or infectious diseases, which are caused by bacteria, viruses or other living organisms. These are also called chronic diseases as, once they develop, they generally remain for the rest of one’s life.
Therapeutic interventions are basically meant to control them to minimise the damage. These diseases are on the rise in Pakistan. 2010 was the year when, for the first time, the burden of disease in Pakistan due to NCDs outweighed communicable diseases, and there has been no looking back. In 2019, there were around 0.83 million deaths caused by NCDs, as opposed to some 0.58m deaths due to infectious diseases the same year.