Physician Specialist at International Maritime Hospital (IMaH) in Tema, Dr Zuleila Fuseini, has stated that there are about 2.4 million Ghanaians, constituting 8.3 percent of the total population, living with diabetes.
“This means that when you take every hundred people, there is a chance of getting eight of them to be diabetic, which is quite a bad thing to say,” she stated.
She quoted the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics on diabetes, which indicate that about 422 million people worldwide have the disease, with the majority living in low- and middle-income countries, and that 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year.
“Both the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades,” she stated.
Dr. Fuseini said this at the weekly “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy.
The Ghana News Agency’s Tema Regional Office developed the public health advocacy platform “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility” to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.
Speaking on “Diabetes Melilitus,” Dr. Fuseini expressed concern that the disease was becoming common in the country, mainly due to the sedentary lifestyle of Ghanaians.
Dr. Fuseini stressed that diabetes was a chronic, metabolic disease characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar), which leads over time to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys, and nerves.
She said the most common was type two diabetes, usually in adults, which occurred when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn’t make enough insulin.
“In the past three decades, the prevalence of type two diabetes has risen dramatically in countries of all income levels.
She said type one diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin by itself.
“For people living with diabetes, access to affordable treatment, including insulin, is critical to their survival. There is a globally agreed target to halt the rise in diabetes and obesity by 2025,” she said.
She mentioned that preventive modalities included balanced diets, regular exercise, cutting down on alcohol intake, cessation of smoking, and keeping weight, saying the ideal Body Max Index (BMI) should be between 18 and 25, among others.
Dr. Fuseini also expressed worry that although type one was common among children and type two was prevalent among adults currently, type two was now being highly recorded among children.
Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Regional Manager of Ghana News Agency in Tema, warned against the rise of sedentary lifestyles and inactivity, which are associated with our current way of life: modes of transportation, working in a seated position, and other new ways of doing things imply that we are less active.
He emphasised the importance of combating sedentary lifestyles, which have become a public health crisis.