The 2016 World Health Day was centred on diabetes and its debilitating downturn in the lives of many Nigerians irrespective of age and status. With this effect, experts from the US are set to help out tame the menace. It is expected that there will be a 25% reduction in death rate within the spate of five years after the partnership.
The Federal Government in partnership with the United States of America have entered an agreement to stem the raging tide of diabetes which data reports from the United Nations, World Health Organisation, conference reports and local Nigerian studies have revealed that between 1980-2014, the prevalence of the disease has doubled from 108 million people to 422 million.
It also reveals that by the year 2030 when Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are expected to end, the population of people with diabetes if put in one country, will be third in the world after China and India with over 422 million people living with it globally especially as it rises faster in middle and low income countries, of which Nigeria is one.
To put a halt to its damage as it is known to kill one person every seven seconds worldwide and known to be the 5th leading cause of death in sub- sahara Africa, the founder and CEO of PreHab Diabetes Services, Alabama, USA, Robert Tate will in collaboration woth the Federal Ministry of Health train Nigerian physicians in the US who will in turn train others on return after three months of intensive training.
He says, “We have developed a pre diabetic Nigeria initiative and we want to take Nigerian physicians to the US and train them so that they can come back and train others. After we do that, we want to develop clinics by medical standards where they can treat patients and through the clinics, we will supply all the diabetic testing supplies.”
“The training will take three months and each group will have three physicians who will train others once they return and the next group of three will go and this will be done continually.”
“We are collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Health which will in turn set up a committee that will nominate the disciplines and then the training starts.”
“The international federation of diabetes states that without proper testing, proper diagnosis and proper medicine, it is impossible to treat any person with diabetics.”
“The goal is to have a clinic in all the six geo-political zones in the country but to also have a teaching hospital where we can teach not only Nigerian physicians but physicians through out Africa which has established Nigeria as the authority.”
“We have not done this in any African country yet but we are currently talking with countries such as Cuba and Haiti.”
“The ultimate goal of this project is to decrease the death rate of Nigerians as a result of diabetics by 25% in five years which will not be hard to do with the proper equipment to diagnose, treat and with the proper medicine. The initiative will work in Nigeria because we are using the same model which is in use in the US. Our medical director who is currently the number one in the world in diabetic-releted cases has not had any amputee in the last 30 years. So our system works tremendously not only in Nigeria but all through Africa. So this is for millions of people who can be prevented from diabetes.”
Meanwhile, causes of diabetes can be attributed to hereditary, lack of exercise, sedentary lifestyle, excess intake of tobacco and alcohol, improper feeding, among others and it has been discovered that the black race is prone to the ailment as statistica has shown that over five million live with the disease and about 50% of the number are yet to be detected.
72.8% of the patients do not monitor their blood glucose and 20.4% are under what is called good control as many of the victims also suffer high blood pressure.
With the partnership in place, the message to the government at national ans state levels is that all Primary Healthcare Centres must be upgraded to provide initial care to victims. This is not forgetting secondary facilities as they must be properly equipped to tackle present day diabetic challenges.
The NHIS must be revamped due to its poor coverage and inefficiency while religious and traditional leaders must continue to spread the word to their followers.
For victims of the diabetes, there is the need to live positively with the ailment as it is not a death sentence. This has to do with an improved lifestyle.
Source : leadership.ng
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