Talking health : Three-day diabetes conference at DUHS finished

The experts concluded the conference with dire predictions.

KARACHI: The Second International Conference on Diabetes, which was held at the Ojha campus of the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), concluded on Monday. The presence of leading scholars in the field, including fifteen foreign dignitaries, ensured that the event would be a significant milestone in Pakistan’s campaign for effective control of the condition.

Diabetes occurs at a much younger age in South Asian countries than it does in developed countries. In the scientific session held on the last day, the president of the International Diabetes Federation, Sir Michael Hirst, gave a presentation in which he said that the number of people across the globe who suffer from diabetes stands at around 366 million.

This figure is predicted to shoot up to about 552 million by 2030. The director of the Diabetes Association of Pakistan, Dr Samad Shera, spoke on global challenges of diabetes.

He said that every ten seconds, one person dies of diabetes and at the same time, two people develop the condition.

The director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Dr Zaman Shaikh, said that patients with type I diabetes are usually diagnosed at the onset of the condition whereas it is detected much later in those people who develop type II of the ailment.

For this reason, people with type I diabetes get treated earlier and evade other diseases associated with the condition.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 13^th, 2011.