The Chairperson-elect for the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Africa, Mrs. Elizabeth Esi Denyoh, is advocating government of Ghana to establishment a Ghana Diabetes Council to regulate the sector.
According to her, the country is currently lagging behind in terms of regulation on how to deal with diabetes and it related problems in the country.
Speaking at the launch of the World Diabetes Day programme for Africa, on the theme “Access to Diabetes Care,” Mrs. Denyoh said Ghana does not have any regulation or guidelines for managing diabetes.
This, she said has become necessary because diabetes is spreading worldwide and has become a great concern in every country especially Africa to regulate all the organizations in the country into an umbra body to streamline their operations.
“It is time for us to come out of our ivory towers of academia and look at the ground realities which are faced by the medical personnel as well as our people with diabetes,” she stated.
She added that the world is in the midst of massive wars and conflicts as far as diabetes and its co-morbid conditions are concerned.
According to the latest Diabetes Atlas brought out by the International Diabetes Federation, there are about 425 million people with diabetes, and this is projected to increase significantly in the near future.
The interesting thing she revealed was that almost half of the people who have diabetes are not diagnosed while in some parts of the world, two thirds of the people who have diabetes are not aware.
She added that the most sad development is that even amongst the people who know they have diabetes, the vast majority of them are not in optimal control.
‘It is no wonder that today diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and lower limb amputations after traumatic incidents; adding that one in three people undergoing dialysis or renal transplants have diabetes as its root cause.
She added that research revealed that diabetes is a major factor in the increasing numbers of cardiovascular disease and persons with diabetes have a shortened life span.
Mrs. Denyoh said the IDF statistics released in 2011 indicated that in every seven seconds a person dies of diabetes but the situation in Africa is more complicated that in every six seconds a death is recorded.
“It is a chronic condition which can result in cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, damage of limb (amputations), stroke, impotence and eye disease that lead to blindness.”
She revealed that diabetes is said to be one of the rising killer diseases globally, claiming one life every seven seconds and a limb lost at every 30 seconds, according to reports from WHO and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF).
As of 2013, 382 million people have diabetes worldwide as Type 2 Diabetes makes up about 90% of the cases.
This is equal to 8.3% of the adult population with equal rates in both women and men.
In 2014, the IDF estimated that diabetes resulted in 4.9 million deaths, making it the 8th leading cause of death globally.
In African, the disease has affected approximately 13.6 million people as sub-Saharan Africa accounting for seven million. This is estimated to double to 15 million for the region for 2025
Statistics in Africa
She indicates that Nigeria has the highest number of people with diabetes infections of 1,218,000, Uganda as the highest diabetes prevalence in the African Region of 13.1%. Nigeria is the highest number of people with impaired glucose tolerance with an estimated 3,85 million people.
The President of IDF said a dollar spent in preventing Diabetes today will yield a dividend of 20 dollars in five years by preventing.
She stated that world scorecard for Diabetes control worldwide Ghana scored 14% which needs a lot of government support.
“For the past 2 years all efforts to get government subsidy for the Association have failed and we are at this juncture calling for urgent intervention as we do not see any seriousness on the part of the government,” she stated.
Mrs. Denyoh said since 2011, no diabetes Association is an NGO because of its seriousness and therefore aligned all association under the Ministry of Heath but the situation in Ghana is not so.
“We are ready to partner with the ministry to train heath personnel in diabetes education, subsidized medication Including fruits in the school feeding programe and encourage daily exercises in school.
“We need and urgent subsidy for Diabetic product as most good ones are not subsidized by NHIS as such there is rise in complications,” she stated.
