The Registers of chronic diseases in Albania

by, Albana A. Fico, Alban Ylli, Elizana Petrela, Bajram Dedja

Abstract

The most frequent diseases, which started to massively affect the health of Albanians during the end of 20th century and that now, in the new century, are the major threat to public health, have been traditionally called “chronic diseases” or even “degenerative diseases”. These terms had their limits in describing the group of diseases of interest here, with tuberculosi, syphilis or AIDS showing a ”chronic” development, while heart attack or stroke being ”acute” manifestations of the blood circulation diseases. Furthermore, the term ”degenerative disease” is too broad and misleading, with its underlying conotation of the unstopable process of human body geting old and frail. ”Non infective diseases” (NCD) is the term most widely accepted as the appropriate name for the group of diseases which dont get typically trasmited by means of direct contact or by various vectors. It is not the ideal term for diseases which have a infective agent at the basis of their pathogenesis, such as rheumatismal heart disease or cancer of cervix, but it is generally efective for describing together in a category, from a public health point of view, health problems such as ischemic heart diseases, hypertension, cerebrovascular diseases, tumors, diabetes, chronic obstructive lung diseases etc. Although, these diseases have important specifics and diferences among them, their control strategies, or the organisation of an health system for them have a lot in common.