July is non-communicable disease (NCD) month.

The Ministry of Health hopes to screen about 90,000 people over the age of 30 to help prevent the spread of NCDs.

Minister for Health and Medical Services Jone Usamate called on members of the public to attend screening sessions.

“One of the most important problems we have about NCDs is that a lot of people do not know that they have it,” Mr Usamate said.

“Screening is critical. We must identify those who have NCD much earlier and the Ministry intends to screen 90,000 adults annually.

“That is why there is a big push for screening. Once you identify them, you can establish the programme for them.

“You need to try and address it while it is still small because when it becomes big, there is a big problem.

“Our focus is prevention, at least for those who are starting to get the disease to treat them. There is a range of factors like prevention of obesity and making sure that people eat the right food. The month of July is the NCD month.

“There is a huge focus on screening people and we will be doing it through all our subdivision hospitals, health centres and nursing stations.

“There are other agents like Diabetes Fiji which wants to be involved in the screening and we welcome that.”

He confirmed that the data from general practitioners would be used to help combat NCDs.

“Our biggest areas of NCDs are places where we have big populations like the Suva–Lami corridor and the Nadi, Lautoka, Ba corridor,” he said.

Feedback: sheetalp@fijisun.com.fj