Strategic Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases 2013-2017.

The present Policy adopts a whole of government and whole of society approach for tackling non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and reflects the Government's efforts in addressing this public health problem following the adoption of the UN Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of NCDs 2011. The document establishes the basic framework for reducing NCDs morbidity and mortality in the context of broad health reform in South Africa. The Strategy emphasises the importance of the involvement of a number of different sectors to reduce NCDs but simultaneously argues that investment in combating NCDs is a boost to broader national development and examines prevention and control strategies beyond the health sector, thus recognising that NCDs shall be regarded as a development priority rather than only a health concern. The four main NCDs risk factors addressed are: tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and harmful use of alcohol.
The Strategy has three major components: I. Prevent NCDs and promote health and wellness at population, community and individual levels; II. Improve control of NCDs through health systems strengthening and reform; and III. Monitor NCDs and their main risk factors and conduct innovative research. Each strategy contains specific objectives with indicators, activities, timeframes, and means of verification. The overall targets this Strategy will contribute to meet by 2020 are: 1. Reducing by at least 25% the relative premature mortality (under 60 years of age) from NCDs; 2. Reducing by 20% tobacco use; 3. Reducing by 20% the per capita consumption of alcohol; 4. Reducing mean population intake of salt to <5 grams per day; 5. Reducing by 10% the percentage of people who are obese and/or overweight; 6. Reducing the prevalence of people with raised blood pressure by 20%; 7. Increasing the prevalence of physical activity by 10%; 8. Every woman with sexually transmitted diseases to be screened for cervical cancer every 5 years, otherwise every woman to have 3 screens in a lifetime; 9. Increasing the percentage of people controlled for hypertension, diabetes and asthma by 30% in sentinel sites; and 10. Increasing the number of people screened and treated for mental disorder by 30% by 2030.
Preventive action shall be intersectoral and address the complex interaction of the social, environmental and economic determinants of health, requiring that all government departments take health into account. The Government's specific objective regarding obesity and overweight is to increase healthy eating habits in the population through accessible and affordable healthy foods. With this aim, population and community based interventions include: sensitising all role-players on what each one should do to create a better (healthier) food environment, including a range of government departments, NGOs, food producers and the public; legislating for a better food environment, including legislations to reduce trans fatty acids, to reduce salt in processed foods, to potentially ban junk food advertisements to children during key television programmes, to control what is sold to children during school time, to control meals served to the work force, to tax undesirable processed foods exempting healthier choices from taxation, and to enforce better control of food and nutrient supplements; and finally, creating opportunities for innovative actions, which requires the involvement of a number of different government sectors, including agriculture, trade and industry and treasury to increase the accessibility and availability of healthy foods. In addition, the Government will run public campaigns aimed at improving eating habits.