Thousands of People Will Face Amputations if Preventive Measures Are Not Taken Experts Call for Better Food Governance to Combat NCDs Menace

July 23, 2024

Pakistan is facing a significant rise in Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and is largely unprepared for the impact. Approximately 65% of premature deaths in the country are due to NCDs, with over 33 million people diagnosed with diabetes and an additional 10 million pre-diabetic. At least 42 million people are hypertensive, and obesity is increasing, especially among the youth. These diseases can be prevented through diet, lifestyle changes, and access to standard treatments. Key dietary risk factors include high consumption of sodium, fats, trans fats, and sugars, which are prevalent in Pakistan’s food supply, particularly in ultra-processed foods. Improved food governance is crucial to ensure access to nutritious food.

To address this, Islamabad Food Authority (IFA), Centre for Governance and Public Accountability (CGPA) held a seminar today at Blackhole Islamabad, resulting in concrete policy recommendations.

Dr. Tahira Siddique, Deputy Director of the IFA, emphasized the authority’s commitment to food safety in Islamabad, including raids & penalties for non-compliant manufacturers. “We need to increase the lab and human resource capacity of IFA to test food samples for contamination and excessive quantities of trans fats, sodium, and sugars. However, we are committed to ensuring the health security of Pakistan,” she stated.

Mr. Zubair Faisal Abbasi highlighted the need for updated standards: “There is a strong need to update the mandatory standards about the composition of ingredients in manufactured foods, easy to understand front of packet labeling requirements and efforts to increase food diversity as well as the nutritional density of foods.

Prof. Dr. Shakeel Mirza said, “Food governance is closely linked with the effectiveness of health policy frameworks, and if our foods are substantially adding dietary risk factors such as free sugars, high quantities of sodium, and trans fats, we are losing not only health but also the food security of our nation.”

Other 40 Participants including Lubna Naz, Dr. Yusra Gillani, Dr. Uzair Ahson called for Pakistan to develop a health focused policy framework, including taxation, subsidies and healthcare expenditures. They suggested subsidizing healthy foods for the poor rather than ghee and sugar during Ramadan packages and emphasized that government procurement policies should discourage the high use of dietary risk factors.”