Mie Okamura, the officer in charge of the WHO office for emergency preparedness and response, has said that Nigerians should exercise regularly to prevent fatalities from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
She dropped this clue during the WHO-WALK-THE-TALK event on Saturday, December 17, 2022, which was held to raise awareness of NCDs and encourage physical exercise.
According to reports, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which include chronic lung disease, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, account for 74% of all fatalities globally.
According to her: “This is what we call walking the talk, is part of WHO weekly activities, we use it to sensitize the population to live a healthy lifestyle and this is one way to show people that we need to do exercise to be active.
“We have three targets in WHO, one is the Universal Health Coverage to grant one billion access to universal health coverage without having financial hardship.
“The second one is one billion more people to be impacted by health emergencies and the third is one billion more people to enjoy a healthy life. To enjoy a healthy life we need to do exercise to keep the .
“As we approach the festive season we are urging Nigerians to do exercise, eat healthy food and enjoy time with the family and have a healthy style of living so that we can beat the non-communicable diseases so that we can beat diabetes, cardiovascular diseases”, she stated.
Meanwhile, the WHO Regional Officer for Africa, Dr Mary Stephen said they are training the staff of WHO to be able to respond to upcoming emergencies, as you know Nigeria is prone to so many emergencies we are building capacity and also strengthening what we have internally at WHO to respond quickly to health emergencies.
