COMMUNICABLE AND NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES

 

The initial cause of the diseased state may lie within the individual organism itself, and the disease is then said to be idiopathic, innate, primary, or “essential.” It may result from a course of medical treatment, either as an unavoidable side effect or because the treatment itself was ill-advised; in either case, the disease is classed as iatrogenic. Finally, the disease may be caused by some agent external to the organism, such as a chemical that is a toxic agent. In this case, the disease is noncommunicable; it affects only the individual organism exposed to it. The external agent may be itself a living organism capable of multiplying within the host and subsequently infecting other organisms; in this case, the disease is said to be communicable.

 Noncommunicable disease

Noncommunicable diseases, also known as chronic diseases, are generally long-lasting and progress slowly, and thus they are sometimes also referred to as chronic diseases. They can arise from environmental exposures or genetically determined abnormalities, which may be evident at birth or become apparent later in life. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified four major types of noncommunicable disease: cancer, cardiovascular disease (e.g., heart attack, stroke), chronic respiratory disease (e.g., asthma), and diabetes mellitus. WHO estimates that these four groups of conditions account for 82 percent of all deaths from noncommunicable diseases.

Brain cancer; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)An image, produced by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), of a human brain affected by cancer. The bright blue area indicates that the cancer spread to the occipital lobe (lower right).© Photodisc/Thinkstock

Noncommunicable diseases that arise from inherited genetic abnormalities often leave an individual ill-equipped to survive without some form of treatment. Examples of inherited diseases include cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome, and inborn errors of metabolism, which are present at birth. Examples of inherited diseases that emerge in adulthood include Huntington's disease and certain forms of cancer (e.g., familial breast cancer involving inherited mutations in either of the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2).

In Zambia, the most common NCDs in the country include chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes mellitus (type II), cancers, epilepsy, mental illnesses, oral diseases, eye diseases and sickle cell anaemia.

·         Recent research has shown that 24 percent of men smoke and more than a third of men had hypertension.

·         In the recent past several people have had suffered attacks from some of non-communicable diseases while at their workplaces.

·         With the change of life style and the adoption of bad eating habits a large number of people in society have been affected with diseases like hypertension, diabetic and many others.

 Communicable Diseases in Zambia

Communicable diseases, also known as infectious diseases, along with maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions in Zambia account for an estimated 64% of all mortality in 2008.

·         The prevalence of HIV in Zambia, as a percentage of population aged 15-49 years, stood at 12.7% in 2012. There has been a gradual and continuous decline in the prevalence of HIV since 1993.

·         There were 2,976,395 reported cases of malaria in 2009. The number of deaths from malaria have fallen by around one-third between 2001-11.

·         In the period 1996-2012 there was a reduction of over a third in the estimated incidence of tuberculosis (TB).

·         In 2009 there were 4,702 reported cases of cholera, 681 reported cases of pertussis (whooping cough) and

·         371 reported cases of leprosy.