November 11, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 12, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 10: More than six million people in the country are suffering from diabetes and the number is expected to reach 11.6 million by 2025, if meaningful and concerted efforts are not made.

In view of the increasing cases of diabetes there is a need to spread awareness and set up more clinics and health facilities for the treatment of the disease both in urban and rural areas of the country.

These views were expressed at a joint press conference addressed by vice-chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences Professor Masood Hameed Khan and a senior diabetologist, Professor Zaman Sheikh, on Monday. The press conference was arranged in connection with the inauguration of a renovated building at Ojha campus of the university where the National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology has been lately shifted.

Prof Hameed said modern facilities for the treatment of diabetes would be available at the ‘new state-of-the-art NIDE’ that was first of its kind in the country. He said with the latest facilities being offered at the institute, the DUHS was in a position not only to provide excellent medical treatment to patients but also create awareness to help curb the diabetes incidence.

He hoped that more facilities like NIDE would be developed in other parts of the province to provide relief under one roof to the patients of diabetes also suffering from other health complications.

Prof Sheikh, who is also the NIDE’s director, said that more than 230 million people across the globe were diabetic, while it had been estimated that 6.2 million of them lived in Pakistan. The figure represented 8.5 per cent of the country’s adult population, he said, stressing that meaningful and concerted efforts be made to check the rising incidence.

The director said that the NIDE had been established with the objective of providing free of cost standard treatment facilities to diabetes and endocrine patients living in Karachi or coming from other parts of the province or the country. “We at the NIDE attend to people with diabetes and cardiovascular and ophthalmic problems as well, in addition to providing laboratory investigations, a day care centre with computerized record keeping, trained diabetic educator nurse, dietician and chiropodist, diabetic foot clinic, gestational diabetes, diabetes in pregnancy and a men’s health clinic,” he mentioned.

Prof Sheikh said in addition to diabetes patients a large number of their relatives and individuals at risk of the diseases were also screened at the NIDE. In connection with the World Diabetes Day a free diabetes camp had been planned for the general public on the Ojha institute premises this month, he added.

Responding to questions, the DUHS vice-chancellor said that a plan had been finalised for the establishment of a 225-bed exclusive hospital for tuberculosis patients at a new site as part of the Ojha campus. “We are in the process of developing institutes and medical centres at the Ojha, in addition to developing a full-fledged general hospital,” he said. He made it clear that the old Ojha institute of chest disease facilities and relevant OPDs established earlier in Nazimabad, Malir, Layri, Orangi and other parts of the city were still intact and catering to the needs of patients suffering tuberculosis or chest diseases.