‘Most of over 200,000 annual amputations in Pakistan due to diabetes are preventable’

Around two hundred thousand people in Pakistan lose their feet annually due to diabetic foot ulcers. Also five million people in the country do not have access to diabetes care.

Leading health experts shared this and other diabetes-related data of the country while speaking on Friday at the inaugural ceremony of the National Association of Diabetes Educators of Pakistan (NADEP) Diabetes Footcon 2021 in Karachi. They urged the government to work for the prevention of the lifestyle disease that had been killing hundreds of thousands of people in the country.

“Around five million people who are diagnosed diabetics don’t have access to diabetes care in Pakistan. Of them, two million develop foot ulcers and 10 per cent of these two million, who are around two hundred thousand people, get their lower limbs amputated due to diabetic foot ulcers, which can be prevented,” said Prof Abdul Basit, secretary general of the Diabetic Association of Pakistan, as he addressed the inaugural ceremony of the international diabetes conference.

The NADEP Diabetes Footcon 2021 is being attended by diabetologists and endocrinologists from across the world. The conference, which is taking place at the Movenpick Hotel, will continue till tomorrow (Sunday).

Prof Basit maintained that there were around 10 million diabetics in Pakistan who were unfortunately not aware of their health condition and did not know that they could die due to complications of diabetes.

“Hardly five per cent of Pakistani diabetics have access to standardised treatment and diabetes care in Pakistan, which is extremely disappointing. Billions of rupees are being spent on creation of tertiary-care hospitals and health facilities although we need primary healthcare facilities and educators to reduce and prevent the prevalence of disease like type 2 diabetes,” the endocrinologist stressed.

Sharing disturbing figures regarding diabetes in Pakistan, Prof Basit said most of the amputations being carried out in Pakistan were ‘unnecessary’ or preventable. He added that over 70 per cent people who underwent amputation due to diabetes in the country, die within five years after that.

“So, of the two hundred thousand people, around 140,000 people die between one to five years following amputation. These amputations and deaths can be prevented as done by the developing countries of the world. All we need is to facilitate access to diabetes care and have prevention programmes launched in the country,” he said.

Urging the provincial and federal governments to spend major portion of their health budgets on prevention of diseases, Prof Basit suggested that laws be promulgated to reduce the prevalence of diabetes in the country. “We have every fourth person suffering from diabetes and if we don’t do anything, we would be having 50 per cent of our population suffering from diabetes,” he added.

Karachi Health Services Director Dr Akram Sultan, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho wanted the amputation rate reduced in Sindh and in this regard, programmes based on public-private partnerships were being initiated.

“On the pattern of district education officers, it is being considered to hire health educators who educate the masses and create awareness about prevention of diseases,” he said, adding that diabetes and other non-communicable diseases should be part of undergraduate and school curricula to lower their prevalence in Pakistan.

The organising secretary of the conference, Dr Zahid Miyan, said unnecessary amputations were making lives of thousands of people miserable in Pakistan, who were becoming dependent on their families and society due to their disability. He added that these amputations could be reduced even to 1 per cent and below with the help of education and training.

“We have launched a programme to prevent amputations and under this programme, we have trained hundreds of doctors to treat foot ulcers in Pakistan. We have invited international experts in this conference, who would be sharing their experiences to prevent foot ulcers and

amputations with the help of medicines and other non-surgical interventions,” he said.

Another diabetologist Dr Saif-ul-Haq said the Covid-19 pandemic had resulted in apathy towards non-communicable diseases in Pakistan and other countries. He stressed the need for controlling diabetes, which was annually killing hundreds of thousands people and making another thousands disabled in the country.

The speakers at the international conference include International Diabetes Federation President Prof Andrew Boulton, cricketer Wasim Akram and experts from Europe, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan.