‘If we do not stop the scourge of lifestyle diseases we will not be able to implement the [b]National Development Plan[/b],’ is the warning from [b]University of Witwatersrand[/b] public health professor Karen Hofman in a report in [s]The Times[/s]. She said type 2 diabetes, which affects more than 2m South Africans, could cause blindness and amputation of limbs, and that ‘diseases entrench the cycle of poverty’. National [b]Health Department[/b] spokesperson Joe Maila has, meanwhile, confirmed that the government would form a health council to tackle the lifestyle diseases ‘epidemic’. The council’s focus would include some cancers, heart disease and strokes, and diabetes.
[link url=http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2014/05/13/plan-to-fight-lifestyle-diseases]Full report in The Times [/link]