The three NCDs are cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, blood clots and strokes), diabetes and cancer.

“NCDs are the main cause of death and disability in Malaysia. Their growing prevalence is placing increased strain on the country’s health system through rising demand for health services,” the report said.

“Given Malaysia’s ageing population, the health and economic burden of NCDs can be expected to worsen over time.

“Malaysia – like other countries in the region – needs to place greater focus on gaps in policy, particularly around inadequate surveillance of NCDs and their risk factors, lack of trained healthcare personnel and limited primary care capacity,” it said.

The report also said a greater investment was required in prevention, including health promotion around healthy lifestyles, and the capacity of the primary care system to provide essential preventive interventions for NCDs.

The report is based on 2017 data derived from hospital care, medical tests, medicines prescribed, and primary care consultations.

It said the annual direct healthcare costs from diabetes alone totalled about RM4.4 billion compared to cardiovascular disease (RM3.93 billion) and cancer (RM1.34 billion).

It said the higher costs of diabetes were due to the high proportion of primary care and outpatient attendances that were attributable to the illness.

“The other contributing factor is the inclusion of tests for heart disease being limited to routine diagnostic and monitoring tests.

“It is assumed that more complex and costly tests were primarily performed in the inpatient setting and this would be captured in the hospitalisation costs,” it said.

The report also stated that hospitalisation fees totalled RM1.58 billion for the three NCD categories.

It also revealed that RM1.72 billion was spent on medications, of which nearly half or 46% of the expenditure was incurred for patients with cardiovascular disease, while the balance was distributed between drugs for diabetes (30.33%) and cancer (23.67%).