Non-Communicable disease (NCD) control in Maldives through Primary Health Care

This policy proposal arises out of a need to re-strategize the present NCD control program in Maldives t owards a prevention-focused approach. This is necessary because the present one based on a medical model is unacceptably inefficient financially and irrelevant in respect of the causes of NCDs which are primarily environmental and life-style related.

Over the past few decades, Maldives has witnessed a major epidemiological transition from a communicable diseases dominant nation to a non-communicable disease dominant one where cancers, cardio-vascular disease, diabetes have become the major causes of both morbidity and mortality in the country2. And to address these, the nation had turned to a medical model for solutions with an inordinate focus on a tertiary approach to screening and managing the diseases at enormous expense than using a much less costly health protection and promotion approach. Clearly, NCDs have environmental and behavioral causes3 and thus there is all the argument for a preventive approach.

This paper attempts to investigate the reasons for the low priority given to NCD prevention in the Maldives national program, and to encourage the government adopt a cost-effective health approach to address this emerging NCD burden in Maldives through Primary Health Care.