Chennai: “Six years ago, the World Bank warned that in the next decade 80 per cent of deaths in the world will be due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and cost burden to be $30 trillion while India’s cost burden would be 4.8 trillion dollar, which is 50 per cent of country’s GDP,” said Apollo Hospitals Group chairman, Dr Prathap C Reddy.
Speaking during the launch of Apollo ProHealth programme here Tuesday, he said the government should increase the healthcare spend.
“We all are focused on cure, not care. Treating diseases is not the only way to health. If we care for our health, we will not need to cure anything ever. World is facing tsunami of NCDs which is threatening even the younger generations. An economy like ours, which is both ambitious and aggressive, needs healthy citizens to realise its true potential. This is not possible with the growing menace of lifestyle diseases or NCDs.”
The ProHealth initiative is a comprehensive health programme, powered by pHRA (personalised Health Risk Assessment), enabled by artificial intelligence that works on the principle of predict, prevent and overcome.
The programme was launched in Chennai and Hyderabad yesterday and the Apollo Hospitals chief stated that plans are in place to cover all the metro cities subsequently.