Staff Reporter
Medical experts have underlined the need to redouble the efforts to increase mass awareness in view of ever increasing menace of Diabetes in the country as it has reached epidemic proportions with Pakistan being ranked 4th in the world with 19.4 million people afflicted with diabetes.
Prominent physicians speaking at an event held at SIUT which marked the World Diabetes Day here on Saturday said that in Pakistan 8.8 Million people has Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) and estimated 8.5 Million people with un-diagnosed diabetes. This “alarming” situation they said has been continuously rising with severe detrimental effects for the health of society at large.
The experts and those physicians treating diabetes patients quoted the global figure and pointed out that worldwide an estimated 463 Million which is 9.35% adults aged 20-79 years have diabetes and very distressingly still there are over 231.4 Million people which are 50.1% with undetected diabetes. The most common type is diabetes type 2 which comprises 90% of all diabetics at the global level. The number of deaths resulting from diabetes & its complication in 2019 is 4.2 million.
Dr Fatema Jawad head of the SIUT team of physicians during a question answer session informed the audience that the risk of diseases like kidney failure, stroke, vision problems, heart ailments, vascular malfunctioning, Gangrene and Fatty liver are few which are often caused by diabetes. She called for adopting healthy life style, regular monitoring and awareness education as few measures to prevent and counter the disease and its complications.
She stressed on adopting preventive measures in the form of a healthy life style, to prevent diabetes. This should be inducted from childhood as a healthy child will grow into a healthy adult. Diabetes imposes a heavy burden not only on the individual, but also the family and eventually the nation. To have a healthy nation awareness should be created from an early age which including a balanced diet and exercise.
Elaborate arrangements were made at SIUT for this day long activity which included Blood & Urine tests, BMI estimation, Vital signs measurements, Dietitian & Physicians consults and information and education about the disease through presentations and lectures by SIUT faculty to a large number of people who visited SIUT and availed these facilities.
