A’Ibom Urged to Give Priority to Diabetes Patient

Okon Bassey in Uyo

In order to check the high rate of death among the diabetes patients in the state, the Akwa Ibom State Government has been urged to give the desired attention to diabetes cases like it’d doing to HIV and other diseases in the state.

The Akwa Ibom State Coordinator of Diabetes Association of Nigeria, Dr. Sam Onung, said a survey had indicated that more people die in the state from diabetes than HIV, tuberculosis and malaria combined together.

Onung, a consultant physician and endocrinologist, also urged public-spirited individuals to come to the aid of diabetes cases by providing free medical treatment or subsidised treatment and tests.

The diabetes expert made the call during an interview with journalists in Uyo yesterday during the activities to mark this year’s World Diabetes Day with the theme: ‘Education to protect tomorrow.’

He said: “We are calling on the government and other good-spirited individuals to prevent our patients from dying as we are not giving diabetes the kind of attention it deserves.

“Diabetes is killing more people than HIV; we need to give diabetes the kind of attention we are giving to HIV so that patients will not be dying out of the inability to afford their medications and do their laboratory tests to enable them live normally.

“In Akwa Ibom State, we have up to 10 percent of the population living with diabetes, so in a population of a about six million people in state, we have nothing less than 600,000 people living with diabetes, some of whom are dying because they don’t have money to cater for themselves.

“We need help from the government and public-spirited individuals and organisations to avoid the needless death of members.”

Onung said this year’s Diabetes Awareness Day was celebrated at the General Hospital, Iquita in Oron local Government Area of the state, adding that 510 people were screened during the exercise.

He explained that this year’s theme was deliberately chosen because there was the need to let the people know about diabetes, its signs and symptoms and the need for the public to go for blood sugar test, and for those living with the condition to know how to cope to avoid needless deaths.

“In the time of our forefathers, those ones used to be very active, they could trek a long distance to their farms as a form of exercise. They used to eat natural foods, fruits, vegetables, not preserved fast and junk food which is considered unhealthy.

“By the time you combine physical inactivity and unhealthy diet, with increase stress these days, we are bound to have more people coming down with diabetes,” he noted.