HEALTH: Heart Disease, Cancer Increases in the South

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 15 1998 (IPS) - Heart attacks and a high incidence of cancer, generally linked to stressful lifestyles in industrialised countries, are increasingly common in developing nations, according to latest reports.

This tendency was detected both by a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report and by the Cardiology World Congress , held in in Rio de Janeiro at the end of April.

Health experts here opined the cause partly was due to the fact that developing nations have incorporated the risk factors of the developed world without dedicating sufficient energy to the establishment of preventative measures.

While the incidence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases has tended to stabilize, and even decline, in industrialized countries, developing nations are confronted with the prospect of a further increase in both cases, they said.

Poverty worsens circulatory problems for three basic reasons, according to Argentinian cardiologist, Rene Favaloro, known for the introduction of coronary bridges of saphenous veins 30 years ago.

– The poor lack the information that would help to prevent those diseases, not to mention the resources that would enable them to buy healthier food.

– At the same time, unemployment is dangerously high, a stress factor that contributes to an increase in heart-related illnesses.

– Prevention campaigns, crucial to the stabilization of the rate of disease-related fatalities in developed countries, are based primarily on education and changes in lifestyle, measures rarely put into practice in poor countries. As Favaloro pointed out, the poor population eats “whatever it can,” without the luxury of choice.

For these reasons, the International Society and Cardiology Federation now predicts that deaths due to cardiovascular disease will increase 30 per cent in the poorest countries and 20 per cent in semi-developed countries like Brazil by the year 2020.

Another cause is the inadequate supply of medical personnel, said Antonio Bayes de Luna, president of the Society, who noted that in Africa there is only one cardiologist per one million inhabitants. In Mozambique, moreover, there are only two for the entire country of 15 million inhabitants.

In Brazil, only three percent of the health care budget is allocated to the prevention of cardiovascular problems, although they are responsible for 34 per cent of all registered deaths in the country, complained Mario Maranho, the recently inaugurated president of the International Cardiology Federation.

Of the 52.2 million deaths last year, 15.3 million (29 per cent) were caused by cardiac and circulatory problems.