Diabetes Day: 6m Nigerians Are Diabetic, Say Experts

As the World marks World Diabetes Day, a chief consultant, Chemical Pathologist and Metabolic Physician with the National Eye Centre Kaduna, Dr Shehu Abdulrahman, has said that about six million Nigerians are diabetic.

This is coming just as the National Eye Centre on Tuesday offered free diabetes test to 200 residents.

World Diabetes Day is commemorated on November 14 to raise awareness of diabetes as a global public health issue. This year’s diabetes day has the theme, “Access to Diabetes Care.”

But speaking on the importance of the day, Abdulrahman said researches show that in every 1000 Nigerians, 36 Nigerians have diabetes.

According to Abdulrahman, “six million Nigerians are currently suffering from Diabetics. There is another  eighth million on pre-diabetes level. Partnership with media will help information sharing and education and multiplicity of information will help.”

Experts estimated that the prevalence of diabetes in Nigeria will rise to 4.3 per cent and attributed the rise to lifestyle changes caused by urbanisation and its results.

A worker at the National Eye Centre, Dr Paul Unung, described diabetes as a silent killer and one of the leading causes of death globally.  

He said diabetes is not only closely associated with high blood pressure, obesity and heredity, its complications also include damage to the brain, heart, kidney and limbs. It exposes its victim to blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke, and lower limb amputation.