Driven by India’s health profile, chronic respiratory diseases accounted for a greater percentage of health loss in the South Asia region. According to the new Global Burden of Disease (GBD) report, ischemic heart disease, stroke and low back pain, increased in rank between 1990 and 2010, while causes that primarily affect children, such as lower respiratory infections, diarrhea, preterm birth complications, and protein-energy malnutrition, decreased in rank.
The report suggested that unlike most of the leading communicable causes, HIV/AIDS and malaria increased by 353 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively in the countries of the region. Overall, communicable, newborn, maternal and nutritional health burdens declined similarly globally and in South Asia between 1990 and 2010. Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) caused by diarrheal diseases, preterm birth complications and lower respiratory infections saw a decline of 55 per cent, 31 per cent and 44 per cent, respectively.
Significantly, between 1990 and 2010, ischemic heart disease increased by 73 per cent and moved from 10th to fourth place in South Asia. In South Asia, the health loss due to diabetes escalated much faster, from 28th in 1990 to 16th in 2010, representing a 104 per cent increase over the 20-year period.
In South Asia, Global Burden of Disease, 2010 documented important regional trends that revealed substantial declines in health loss due to communicable, maternal, and childhood diseases; nonetheless, despite great progress, these conditions still topped many countries’ health burdens. At the same time, most countries experienced an increasing disease burden due to non-communicable diseases from 1990 to 2010. “This dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases was largely driven by India, which is the largest country in the region,” said the report.
Road injuries and self-harm were also dominant causes of premature death and disability in the region.
For two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, an increase in health loss occurred due to past and ongoing war and civil unrest. Sri Lanka, a country that experienced a conflict from the early 1980s through 2009, showed a huge decrease in health loss due to interpersonal violence.
Prepared by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and the Human Development Network at the World Bank based on seven papers for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010) published in The Lancet. GBD 2010 had 488 co-authors from 303 institutions in 50 countries.