In a bid to raise awareness on Diabetes, experts have called for inclusive coverage of diabetes in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) tasked the government on the needs to formulate policies designed to address the challenges of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in the country.

They made the remark during a one-day Diabetes Summit organised by Sanofi Aventis, a global biopharmaceutical healthcare company titled ‘Personalizing Diabetes Care’ noting that Diabetes Mellitus (DM) has assumed a pandemic proportion worldwide in terms of prevalence, morbidity and mortality especially in developing countries like Nigeria with poor healthcare infrastructure and funding.
Speaking at the summit, General Manager Rx and Country Chair, Sanofi Nigeria-Ghana, Folake Odediran said they are committed to standards in providing healthcare solutions for the prevention and management of a broad spectrum of medical conditions.

“As we already know, diabetes remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. It must be acknowledged that various stakeholders are making tremendous contribution in their respective spheres of influence to improve treatment outcomes.

However, there exist gaps in terms of policy direction, public awareness, advocacy, patient education, diagnosis infrastructure and overall capacity of the healthcare system to effectively manage this disease,” she said.

Odediran added that Sanofi Diabetes Summit is borne out of the need to support existing efforts at addressing these gaps in healthcare and as leaders in diabetes care, Sanofi will continue to prioritise public-private partnerships initiatives that support speedy attainment of universal health coverage for diabetes patients.

The country chair disclosed that to ensure they have very robust conversation, the summit has been expanded to accommodate more policy makers, health insurance managers, patient advocacy group healthcare funders, supply chain logisticians, as well as professionals in quality assurance digital technology.

Similarly, Professor of Endocrinology and Dean, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, University of Abuja, Felicia Anumah in her presentation titled “Management of Hypertension in Diabetes” cited hypertension as a common condition that coexist with type 2 diabetes, adding that it is a clear risk factor for Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) – a general term for hardening of the arteries.
Anumah added: “We are here to brainstorm on how we can manage these patients better. We have experts from various places including Cameron and Ghana and Egypt as well as Nigeria to brainstorm on how we can manage these patients better.”
She called for diabetes education saying, “Diabetes is a big deal. It is very important to empower these patients so as to be knowledgeable enough about this disease and be in charge rather than the disease being in charge of them. We need to educate them about risk factors, physical activities, about diet and foot care. We need to teach them so that they get to know what these disease is all about and take care of themselves 50 percent.”

Anumah disclosed that the country is trying in managing the disease but more have to be done. “First of all in the area of sensitization, in Nigeria the only option we have as far as diabetes is concerned is prevention. People need to be empowered and live right, prevent having it at the first instance because when people have diabetes and because we run an out of pocket system many are not able to afford proper care and therefore all manner of complications come up because of the cost complications. Cheaper option we have is prevention in Nigeria so there is a need for a lot of education a lot of sensitisation of the public on what the risk factors are and how to prevent having diabetes at the first instance,” she added.

Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaounde1, Yaoundé, Cameroon, Professor Jean Claude Mbanya said that only few people living with diabetes are achieving treatment clinical goals in Africa.

Mbanya explained that reasons people with type 2 diabetes are not achieving glycaemic goals are as a result of lack of diabetes education, lack of insulin titration (the right insulin dosage prescribed by the physician) and lack of experience in self-management, while people with type 1 diabetes are not also achieving control due to fear of hypoglycaemia (low level of blood glucose), lack of insulin titration and lack of diabetes education.
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