Prioritise Diabetes Control, DICOMAG Urges Health Minister

Diabetes Control Media Advocacy Group (DICOMAG), a non-governmental organisation, has urged the new Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Emmanuel Ehanire, to make the control of diabetes a major priority during his tenure as he settles down to run the affairs of the nation’s health ministry in the next four years. In a statement signed by its Director of Communication, Mrs Yinka Shokunbi, while congratulating the minister and the Minister of state for Health, Senator Olurunnimbe Mamora, the group urged Ehanire to devise urgent and concrete measures to address the current heavy burden of the disease in all parts of the country to prevent a looming epidemic. She said: “We are delighted that Ehanire is back in the ministry where he served as the minister of state in the last dispensation. We believe he is well placed to lead the ministry towards the revitalisation and restructuring of the nation’s battered healthcare delivery system.”

The organisation however urged him, as he settles down to work, to consider for urgent attention, the alarming increase of diabetes in Nigeria, its attending complications, deadly consequences and impact on the health and overall wellbeing of the people. “The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that no fewer than five million Nigerians are currently living with diabetes and like elsewhere in the world, the number of cases is increasing very fast. “The federation also estimates that one in every two people with diabetes in the country is undiagnosed which means that the current estimated number of cases could be double or even more.

“Last year, experts at a stakeholders meeting on diabetes foot care raised the alarm that Nigeria is currently recording unacceptable number of lower extremities amputation and death resulting from diabetes foot ulcer in all parts of the country.

“That’s not all, results of different studies in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, Port Harcourt in Rivers, Ile Ife in Osun State, the rural communities in Gombe, Enugu, Kwara, Borno, Zaria, Uyo, Sokoto, among several others, all indicate that diabetes is not only prevalent, it is contributing to the development of heart disease, renal disease, pneumonia, bacteremia, and even tuberculosis (TB) in all the places.