By Elizabeth Mwai

Doctors have urged African Governments to get ready for the impact of transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases.

Participants of the Seventh Global Health Promotion Conference on Tuesday heard that in the next 15 years the burden of non-communicable disease like cancer and diabetes would be overwhelming.

The Centre for Disease Control USA, Associated Director for Global Health Promotion David Macqueen on Tuesday said the urgency to invest in mitigating the impact of this transmission was wanting.

"In the next 10 to 15 years the impact of this transition especially in Africa will be huge so its important to get it right," said Dr Macqueen.

Speaking at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Macqueen said the situation was especially grave due to the fact that diseases did not respect border.

African Institute for Health and Development Executive Director Mary Nyamongo said Kenya has no policy on non-communicable diseases.

This, Dr Nyamongo said, was of great concern especially with increasing cases of disease like diabetes, hypertension and cancer.

The biggest challenge, she said, was the little investment allocated to this sector, which did not make significant impact towards health promotion.

The health sector takes 5.4 per cent of the national budget, barely near the agreed 15 per cent in the Abuja Declaration.

In addition, Nyamongo said the health systems were not oriented to be more sensitive to non-communicable diseases thus leading to misdiagnosis of diseases like diabetes.