Dr Nguyen Thi Hong Diem from the Preventive Medicine Department under the Ministry of Health (MOH) said non-communicable diseases are the leading reason that causes deaths in Vietnam. Eight out of every 10 deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases.

Non-communicable diseases are understood as chronic diseases, not transmitted from person to person, and progress slowly for a long time. Some common non-communicable diseases include cardiovascular diseases (stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure... etc), diabetes, cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and mental diseases.

In 2019, Vietnam reported 727,000 deaths, and 81 percent of the deaths were caused by non-communicable diseases. Nearly half of the number of deaths were people below 70 years old.

Diem cited a survey as reporting that about 22 million people have contracted non-communicable diseases across the country.

Of these, 15 million cases aged 18-69 suffer from hypertension, 4.5 million have diabetes, 2 million people aged over 40 have COPD and 354,000 have cancer. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Vietnamese men’s average life expectancy is the fifth high in Southeast Asia, while Vietnamese women’s is the second. Vietnamese people’s average life expectancy is 73.7 years, including 10 years of illness. This seriously affects life quality and reduces the number of years of healthy life.

MOH believes that an unreasonable nutrition regime leads to limitations in physical development, the stature of Vietnamese, as well as an increase in non-communicable diseases related to nutrition. The other related factors cited by the ministry include the living environment, people’s awareness, workforce in the healthcare sector, and budgets for preventive medicine.

In the world, non-communicable diseases are also a burden on people’s health which has been increasing year after year. The burden is heavier for countries with low- or average income.

Recently, experts and healthcare units have repeatedly sounded the alarm about the increase in the proportion of stroke cases among young people, especially those who abuse beer, alcohol and cigarettes, use stimulants, and have "office obesity".

According to Dr Nguyen Anh Tuan, stroke mostly occurred among elderly people, but nowadays, 25 percent of stroke cases occur with youth.

Experts have also expressed concern about the development of obesity. A report showed that 40 percent of school-age children in HCM City are overweight or obese.

The 2020 national nutrition census found that 7.4 percent of Vietnamese children aged below 5 suffer from obesity, or 15 times higher than the figure of 2000.

Linh Giao