UNICEF experts stress rights-based approach to tackling non-communicable diseases among children

India is at the forefront of global child health, but more work remains to be done to ensure children thrive, achieve their full potential, and participate in society in a meaningful way, Raoul Bermejo, health specialist and lead on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), UNICEF headquarters, New York, has said.

Dr. Bermejo was speaking during a visit to the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights here on Monday.

Tackling NCDs in children went beyond the health sector and required a multi-sectoral approach, including a rights-based one. This would make it possible to link up with other departments and agencies, civil society, and those with lived experiences who should be consulted as part of the decision-making process to address the disease, he said.

Dr. Bermejo pointed out that traditionally, global efforts to tackle NCDs focussed on adults as conditions of wealth and affluence and among ageing populations. It was not often talked about in the context of children and young population.

Referring to risk factors for adult onset NCDs, he said it was too late by the time people were in their 40s to address them as risks would have accumulated by then. As many of these risk factors were behaviours established in childhood and adolescence, the best time to address these was then, he pointed out.

Dr. Bermejo pointed out that childhood-onset NCDs such as Type 1 diabetes, congenital and rheumatic heart disease, childhood cancers, and development disabilities presented tremendous challenges to their families, pushing them into poverty because of high-cost treatments. Also, many health systems globally had not evolved to address these conditions in children.

However, Kerala was working to address these challenges and UNICEF wanted to support the commission and the State in developing a new agenda for global health for children and young people. That could also become a model for other States in India and other countries too, Dr. Bermejo said.

Vivek Virendra Singh, health specialist from UNICEF India, praised the child rights commission’s rights-based approach to the issue by bringing in multiple stakeholders to address the issue of NCDs in children. These NCDs were poverty-accentuating conditions. To prevent that, these should be tackled early on, he said.

Dr. Singh also pointed out that for the first time in the country overweight/obesity became equal to underweight as a form of malnutrition among children last year.