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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025
Dr John Omagino, the director of the Uganda heart institute has sounded warning about the rising incidences of non-communicable disease in the country, warning the they have become the monster that is killing people.
Non-communicable diseases cannot be passed onto another person unless through genetic footprint but they are often a result of poor eating habits and kill quicker than other types of disease.
The commonest forms among the Ugandan population are diabetes, hypertension, stroke, obesity among others.
Omagino said quick fried foods that have come to dominate the people’s diet are the leading root causes but advises intensive exercises to burn off extra fat and expel impurities from the body as the way forward.
“We don’t mind what you eat as long as you can burn it and there is no other outlet to burn the excess food apart from through physical exercise,” he said on Wednesday.
Omagino said the body was created with an economic formula to utilize not more than 3,000 calories a day that the rest of extra food is transformed into fats, an accumulation of which causes potbellies, heart attacks, blood clots etcetera.
He pointed out that the combined prevalence rate of non-communicable diseases in Uganda is at 25%, far higher than the HIV prevalence of 5.1%.
Worse still non-communicable diseases are more endemic in the rural areas where health services are strained and referrals to specialized facilities like the Uganda Heart Institute are often beyond the affordability of the ordinary citizen.
Established in 1988, the Uganda Heart Institute (UHI) is a super specialized institution, providing comprehensive cardiovascular services and is the sole National Referral Facility for heart diseases in Uganda.
Although UHI is establishing 16 regional centers to take cardiac services closer to the people, only five centers have been operationalized in the first phase – Mbarara, Lira, Jinja, Hoima and Gulu.
“HIV cannot kill you within an hour, but a non-communicable disease can. Don’t wait for that hitting to happen first because you won’t have the time,” emphasized Dr Omagino.
