Call for mass screenings to detect all diabetics in country

KARACHI: Around 53 per cent people were found to be diabetics when over 21,729 people in Pakistan were screened for the lifestyle disease during last year, 11,500 of them were found to be suffering from type-2 diabetes.

The director of the Discovering Diabetes (DD) project, Abdus Samad, revealed the information to this effect while speaking to the media on Sunday.He explained that 8,255 of the 11,500 diabetic patients had so far been connected with healthcare professionals at the 200 DD clinics across the country.

Launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Pakistan Endocrine Society (PES) and local pharmaceutical firm Pharmevo, the DD project is aimed at reaching out to over 10 million diabetics in Pakistan who are still undiagnosed and due to complications of the disease, facing severe complications including risk of amputations, renal failure, heart attack and mental health issues.

As per the second annual report of the project, which was presented at the 9th Mid-Summer Endocrine Updates conference of the PES that recently concluded in Bhurbhan, hundreds of thousands of pre-diabetics were advised to adopt a healthy lifestyle to delay or avoid the onset of diabetes, Samad said.

He maintained that since the launch of the Discovering Diabetes project in 2021, around 5 million people had been approached by them through medical camps, special awareness campaigns, print and electronic media as well as social media. He added that they were planning to continue their quest of undiagnosed diabetics to put them on treatment.

The DD project lead said that in addition to their toll-free helpline 0800-66766 for the diabetes awareness and assistance, they were having collaborations with universities throughout the country to track and trace missing diabetics and create awareness about the need for adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Diabetologist Dr Abbas Raza in his message lauded the efforts by the Discovering Diabetes team for the collection of valuable data as well as connecting patients with healthcare facilities for the treatment of diabetes.

“Support of the pharmaceutical industry is crucial in getting the real data and finding the missing millions of diabetics in Pakistan,” he said.PES President Dr Ibrar Ahmed said that in a country with over 33 million diabetics, only doctors could not tackle the epidemic of diabetes.He explained that the PES had launched a pilot project in Mardan where people at risk of diabetes were being screened.