Word Diabetes Day: The Journey So Far in Nigeria, By Haruna Isa
POLITICS DIGEST – Health is said to be the state of physical, mental and social well-being, whereby disease and other abnormalities are absent.
The World Health Organization (WHO), has set aside, the 14th November of every year as the World Diabetes Day, in response to growing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes. World Diabetes Day became an official United Nations Day in 2006 with the passage of United Nation Resolution 61/225. It is marked every year on 14 November.
World Diabetes Day is the world’s largest diabetes awareness campaign reaching a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 160 countries. The campaign draws attention to issues of paramount importance to the diabetes world and keeps diabetes firmly in the public and political spotlight.
According to the Centre For Disease Control (CDC), Diabetes is the condition in which the body does not properly process food for use as energy.
It is a group of metabolic diseases whereby a person (or other animal) has high blood sugar due to an inability to produce, or inability to metabolize, sufficient quantities of the hormone insulin.
There are diabetes warning signs and symptoms that both women and men have in common, for example: excessive thirst and hunger, frequent urination (from urinary tract infections or kidney problems), weight loss or gain, fatigue, irritability, blurred vision, slow-healing wounds, nausea among others symptoms.
Diabetes are of different types, of which the causes and effects of each varies. Type 1 diabetes is believed to be an autoimmune condition. This means the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys the beta cells in the pancreas that produces insulin.
Type 2 diabetes starts as insulin resistance. This means the body can not use insulin efficiently. That stimulates the pancreas to produce more insulin until it can no longer keep up with demand. Insulin production decreases, which leads to high blood sugar.
The exact cause of type 2 diabetes is unknown. Contributing factors may include, genetics, lack of exercise, being overweight.
Gestational diabetes is due to insulin-blocking hormones produced during pregnancy. This type of diabetes only occurs during pregnancy.
Symptoms of both types of diabetes can appear at any age, but generally type 1 occurs in children and young adults. Type 2 occurs in people over the age of 45. But younger people are increasingly being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes due to sedentary lifestyles and an increase in weight.
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Diabetes is one of the important noncommunicable diseases, that is rapidly attracting the attention of the international medical community, culminating in a United Nations political declaration on Non Communicable Diseases in September 2011 with follow-up meeting on Political Declaration of the High-level meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non Communicable Disease. Globally, the burden of diabetes is rapidly increasing. According to International Diabetes Federation (IDF), by end of 2013, there were 382 million (or 8.3% of adult world population) people worldwide with diabetes of which 80% live in low-and-middle-income countries; this number is estimated to reach 592 million by 2035. Currently, sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to have 20 million people with diabetes, about 62% are not diagnosed and the number is expected to reach 41.4 million by 2035 or an increase of 109.1%. In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has the highest number of people with diabetes with an estimated 3.9 million people (or an extrapolated prevalence of 4.99%) of the adult population aged 20-79-year-old.
According to Studies conducted in Nigeria indicated that the prevalence of diabetes ranged from low level of 0.8% among adults in rural highland dwellers to over 7% in urban with an average of 2.2% nationally.
No fewer than 5 to 9 million Nigerians are diabetic according to recent statistics.
Furthermore, diabetes contributes to the development of heart disease, renal disease, pneumonia, bacteremia, and tuberculosis (TB). It is known that people with diabetes are 3 times more likely to develop tuberculosis and approximately 15% of TB globally is thought to have background diabetes as a predisposing factor.
Nigeria as it is the country in sub-African region with prevalence cases of diabetes has so far improved in eradicating the diseases, perhaps there have been some lingering factors hindering the development.
More worrisome than the absolute number of people with diabetes in Nigeria is the number who remain undiagnosed or untreated (70%-80% of the 4 million). This relatively poses a great strain on the meager health budget in Nigeria. The net effect is that many patients present to secondary and tertiary health care centers with advanced disease and attendant high morbidity and mortality.
Diabetes has a wide range of prevalence across the country. In the rural areas of Nigeria, diabetes is prevalent in 0%-2% of the population, whereas in the urban regions the figures are much higher at 5%-10%.12, 13, 14 In selected urban cities, diabetes is seen in up to 23.4% of the higher socio-economic members of the community. This is higher than those of the lower socio-economic people (16%) of the same community.
Diabetes is not common in children in Nigeria, but local anecdotal and clinic reports suggest the number of children and adolescents with diabetes is gradually rising.
It undoubtedly has changed the landscape of health care in Nigeria over the decades. Diabetes has been associated with the resurgence of tuberculosis and with the rising prevalence of end-stage kidney disease, erectile dysfunction, and stroke. It has also led to higher numbers and the majority of cases of lower extremity amputation in Nigeria.
From the foregoing, Nigeria despite being at the forefront with the prevalence cases of diabetes in sub-African region. The country has so far reached a tremendous records in eradicating the spread of the disease. This has been by providing health facilities, training and re-training of health personnel among others to ensure that citizens grow in good health.
The World Diabetes Day is worth celebration, because of what it entails both in mission and vision.
Therefore, advocacy, campaign and public awareness should be done as they are the measures to prevent diabetes and manage it effectively.
ASC Haruna Isa, is a Correctional Officer with the Nigerian Correctional Service, Feature/Opinion Writer and Seasoned Journalist. He can be reached at: [email protected]
