A medical products supplier, ISN Products Nigeria Limited, is to further the crusade of managing diabetic patients in Nigeria so they could lead a more fulfilling life.

The Executive Director (ED), Business Development, Mr. Felix Ofungwu, who gave the indication during a chat after the company’s maiden Customer Appreciation Forum in Lagos recently, noted that it has become imperative to do more to help the patients against the alarming global figure of 400 million diagnosed cases as at 2015 and the forecast of the number doubling in the next 25 years.

Asked how his organisation, the leading marketer of Roche’s range of Accu-Chek blood glucose metres in Nigeria, was doing to better the lot of the patients, he said ISN offers a self-care management programme for the diagnosed to help manage their condition against the background that no known cure had been found for the ailment. He quickly added that the affected persons could still lead a good measure of life if the condition is well managed.

On government’s obligation to this category of persons, though Ofungwu admitted that the awareness of the complications arising from diabetes was still very low nationwide, he, however, indicated that “there is a way we can work with the relevant agencies to improve awareness.”

Earlier, the Strategic Account Manager, Roche, Mrs. Folasade Olufemi-Ajayi and the Diabetes Coordinator for ISN, Miss Confidence Amuneke, had in their presentations given a frightening global figure of patients with Nigeria and Sub Sahara Africa getting a chunk of the statistics.

According to them, Type 2 of the ailment accounts for 95 per cent of global population of patients traceable to diets, sedentary lifestyles, obesity, aging, indifference among others.

Unfortunately, the experts pointed out sadly that 50-80 per cent of the patients do not know that they carry the ailment.