Non communicable Diseases (NCD) like diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases, stroke and cancer are on a vertical rise in India, leading to a worrying burden of morbidity, deaths and financial ruin for families. Commendable efforts to understand the prevalence of these diseases to direct scant resources to tackle the issues have been done only by a handful of researchers in India. For a country as huge as India, disease prevalence may vary by states, districts, towns and villages.
KMCH Research Foundation was born out of Dr. Nalla G. Palaniswami’s dream (Chairman KMCH) to ensure that we do high quality healthcare research that directly makes a positive impact on the common man’s health. In continuation of this work, KMCH Research Foundation had organised an international conference on Rural Health and Non Communicable Diseases on 6th April at KMCH Hospital premises.
Faculties included Dr. Soumya Swaminathan from World Health Organisation (televised address from Geneva), Professor V. Mohan, Dr. Thomas Alexander, Director STEMI India, Dr. Ajit Mullasari from Madras Medical Mission, Dr. Arulraj and Dr Krishnan Swaminathan from KMCH, Dr. Velmurugan from IIT Madras and Dr. Srinivisan from Medgenome.
KMCH Chairman Dr. Nalla G. Palaniswami insisted on the need for doctors and institutions to be interested in healthcare research that promotes well being of the local population instead of relying on data from Western countries. He elaborated on the findings from the work of KMCH Research foundation that highlighted a huge burden of diabetes and hypertension in rural, semi-urban and urban areas of Coimbatore & Erode districts.
Diabetes was present in around 1 in 6 adults in rural areas and 1 in 4 from urban areas of Coimbatore. Pre-diabetes was present in nearly 30-40 % of these populations indicating a worrying trend and the urgent need to educate public on the need for healthy diet, lifestyle and regular medical checks. Faculties highlighted the burden of non-communicable diseases in India and the need to have Indian solutions to prevent the burden of disease for common man in India. The conference was attended by around 350 delegates including doctors, researchers and scientists interested in healthcare research.