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 Beginning next year, Hiroshima-born Takeshi Kasai, 53, will use his
five-year term to tackle growing concern over lifestyle diseases,
which officials blame for 80 percent of deaths among the 1.9 billion
people of the western Pacific.
"Non-communicable diseases are growing," outgoing regional director
Shin Young-soo told reporters, referring to conditions related to
obesity, such as diabetes and heart problems.
"This is more like lifestyle-related diseases. Those kind of things
have been rising rapidly."
Shin added, "Some people in the Pacific islands, for instance, lived
on fishing but they consume a lot of junk foods because they no
longer cook and the latter are readily available."
In the past, the bulk of deaths in the region were from infectious,
communicable and tropical diseases, including pandemics, such as
virus outbreaks and various strains of influenza.
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A top priority for Kasai, now a deputy regional director with nearly
three decades in public health, is WHO's goal of stamping out
diseases such as lymphatic filariasis, also known as elephantiasis,
and glaucoma or eye diseases by 2020, he said."The real problem is
how to reach vulnerable people because many areas are inaccessible
and very remote," Shin added.
Elephantiasis, a mosquito-borne disease that causes extreme swelling
in the limbs, is endemic in 13 countries, among them the Philippines
and Malaysia, although it was eliminated from three countries,
including Vietnam, this year.
There are about 120 million disease sufferers globally, with about a
quarter disfigured and incapacitated, WHO said.
(Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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