About 11.2 million Nigerians are living with diabetes, a consultant endocrinologist at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Prof. Sunny Chinenye, has said.
In Nigeria About 11.2 million Nigerians are living with diabetes, a consultant endocrinologist at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Prof. Sunny Chinenye, has said. He stated this yesterday in Abuja at a stakeholders engagement meeting on iCARE initiatives in Nigeria, organised by Novo Nordisk, in collaboration with the Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Endocrinology of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Health and others. iCARE is the implementation of a new global social responsibility strategy called “defeat diabetes” by Novo Nordisk, in Africa, aimed at providing access to affordable diabetes care to vulnerable patients in every country and ensuring that no child should die from type 1 diabetes.
This was disclosed yesterday during the launching of a project between Novo Nordisk and Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja. Speaking on the challenges of diabetes care in Nigeria, a Consultant at Endocrinologist of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Professor Sunny Chinenye, stated that lack of political will, health system issues, access to diabetes care, barriers to diabetes care, social determinants of health and medical issues are leading causes affecting diabetes patients in the country. Chinenye explained that diabetes is a common cause of sudden death, amputations, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and blindness in Nigeria. Chinenye said of the 11.2m Nigerians living with the disease, about 40 per cent were not diagnosed and already had complications at the time of diagnosis. He said tertiary health facilities were overwhelmed with his hospital recording an average of 150 diabetes patients per week
Source: This news is originally published by allafrica