BY MAVIS NISHIMURA PODOKOLO
MINISTER for Health and Medical Services Dickson Mua on Thursday launched the four years multi-sectoral national Non-communicable Diseases strategic plan 2019-2023.
The four-year multi sectoral strategic plan is a collaborative effort of the ministry of health, the Pacific community and the World Health Organisation (WHO) Solomon Islands country office with inputs from various government ministries, Solomon Island National University, Global Youth Nexus and faith based organisation.
This plan acknowledges the current status of NCDs in the Solomon Islands and provides strategies in terms of the three priorities.
Mua said the three priorities are to prevent NCDs and promote health and wellness for all, secondly to improve control of NCDs through capacity building and health system strengthening and to monitor NCDs and elevate interventions to track progress to achieve set target.
“These three priorities aim to produce the epidemic by strengthening monitoring and surveillance, scaling up implementation of evidence based measures to reduce risk factors like, tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol.
“The implementation of this plan will be driven by my ministry but support from the whole-of-government and the whole-of-society is paramount,” he said.
The launch was done at the culmination of the two-day dialogue on NCD road map policy which was held yesterday in Honiara.
