By Dr Zeyar Win
Health is more than the absence of disease. It means complete physical, mental, and social well being. Good health strengthens learning capacity, increases productivity, and supports social stability and peace. A healthy person can study, work, and contribute to family prosperity and national progress. In this way, health is the basic foundation of development.
In the 1980s, Myanmar society was still simple and calm compared to today’s fast changing world. At that time, radio was the most influential medium, and nearly every household owned one. Among the programs broadcast by Myanmar Radio was a song titled “အဓိကမျှော်တွေးကျန်းမာရေး” written by Thein Tan (Myanmar Pyi) and Yankin Aung Myint Than, sung by Than Than Nwe, the song carried lyrics such as: “အာရောဂျံ၊ ပရမံ၊ လာဘံ ဆိုစကား ဒို့များ သိထားကြပါသည်၊ လုပ်အားကိုယ်စီ၊ တူညီပေးဖို့ ဒို့များကိုယ်စီ ကျန်းမာဖို့လိုသည်၊ ကျန်းမာမှ အလုပ် လုပ် နိုင်မည်၊ အဖိုးမဖြတ်နိုင်ပါသည်၊ စိတ်မှာတွေး ကျန်းမာရေးသည် အဓိကအရေး ဖြစ်သည်၊ ဒို့ယုံကြည်” It’s simple yet modern melody made it popular across the country.
This was more than just entertainment. It was a public health campaign reminding citizens that healthy children grow into healthy workers, and that a strong, healthy society becomes the strength of the nation. Other songs promoted healthy habits, such as “စောစောအိပ်လို့ စောစောထလို့ စောစောလမ်းလျှောက်ကြပါစို့”. These cultural messages encouraged ordinary people to adopt healthier lifestyles, showing how media could effectively support public health.
When individuals live long and healthy lives, families spend less on medical treatment, and societies reduce their healthcare burden. For the nation, a strong workforce ensures continuous growth in agriculture, industry, and technology. Prevention in health is especially important. As the saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure.” Preventing disease is more effective and less costly than treating it after it occurs.
Basic measures for good health include balanced nutrition, eating more fruits and vegetables, reducing excess fat, salt, and sugar, regular physical activity, adequate sleep, stress management, avoiding tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, vaccination, and regular health check ups. Health education is vital. When people understand disease risks and prevention methods, illness rates decline. Prioritizing hygiene, vaccination, and preventive care reduces the loss of human resources nationwide.
History shows that humanity has fought not only political wars but also invisible battles against disease. Epidemics have destroyed empires and reshaped societies. The Plague of Justinian in the 6th century killed nearly half the population of the Byzantine Empire, weakening its military and hastening its decline. The Black Death in the 14th century wiped out more than a third of Europe’s population, collapsing the feudal system. In modern times, the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed over 50 million people worldwide, delaying post war recovery for years.
These lessons remain relevant today. The recent COVID-19 pandemic revealed that even powerful nations with advanced weapons struggled when their health systems were weak. Lockdowns disrupted economies and daily life, proving t
hat national security depends not only on military strength but also on resilient public health systems and informed citizens.
In today’s world, health challenges extend beyond traditional diseases. Climate change, environmental degradation, food insecurity, and population density all affect health. These issues are intertwined with politics, economics, and society, creating a broad “health panorama”. Addressing them requires cooperation across sectors and long term planning.
Myanmar’s new government recognizes that sustainable development depends on human resources. It plans to focus on education and health. In the health sector, the priority is expanding Universal Health Coverage (UHC) so that all citizens, regardless of income, can access basic healthcare free or at low cost. Efforts include raising health awareness, strengthening disease prevention, and addressing both infectious diseases and non communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.
Digital media will be used to spread accurate health information and counter misinformation. By sharing reliable, science based knowledge, the government aims to empower citizens to make healthier choices. Vaccination programs, preventive campaigns, and community participation will be intensified to build a healthier population.
Ultimately, health is not created by governments and healthcare workers alone. It is a shared responsibility of every citizen, beginning in families and communities. Reviving the spirit of mutual support from the past, combined with modern medical technology, can ensure long and healthy lives for all. The old radio song “အဓိကမျှော်တွေး ကျန်းမာရေး” still carries meaning today: health is the foundation of education, work, prosperity, and national strength.
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