A HEALTHY diet, active lifestyle and regular medical check-ups are proven ways to avoid and control diseases such as diabetes. African News Agency (ANA) File Pretoria - The University of Pretoria has initiated a Tshwane Insulin Project, a translational research programme aimed at improving early detection and treatment of diabetes at clinics.
The university department of internal medicine's Professor Paul Rheeder said the project started early this year.
In its pilot phase the institution visited clinics and did research of how comfortable nurses and patients were with the insulin treatment.
“If you have Type 2 diabetes which is the one that adults normally get and is related to obesity, for the first couple of years they are managed with tablets however years down the line up to 50% of people will require another form of treatment which is insulin.
Today is recognised as World Diabetes Day, and South Africa has the highest prevalence of overweight or obese citizens in sub-Saharan Africa - a factor which led to diabetes. Close to 4 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women were either overweight or obese.
In 2016, Statistics South Africa revealed that diabetes was second only to TB as a natural cause of death. Alarmingly, more people died from diabetes than from TB, HIV and malaria put together worldwide.
Rheeder said in the public sector people did not have access to expensive medication, which is a challenge because insulin can only be prescribed by a doctor.
In clinics they do not always have the skills and resources to switch a patient’s method of treatment.
“Our goal is to help clinics and patients who need it desperately to get on the insulin treatment,†he said.
Healthcare workers such as nurses, community health workers and designated primary care physicians will facilitate home visits at approximately 68 health facilities including primary care clinics and community health centres as part of the programme.
Rheeder said they were working with the Department of Health and the City of Tshwane as the Insulin Project had been funded for over five years by the Lilly Global Health initiative.
“Of particular significance is the focus on addressing the challenges of safely initiating and titrating insulin in diabetes patients at primary care level should they require it,†he said.
By next year they wanted to initiate at least 400 people on insulin all around Tshwane and improve their quality of life.
The treasurer of Diabetes South Africa Pretoria branch, Liz Midlane, said diabetes was manageable.
However, the challenge came with getting the resources to get patients treatment and get them tested regularly.
“Diabetes can be managed with medication, being careful of what one eats and by changing lifestyle they can live a healthy life.
“There's hope even in the dire situation South Africa is in considering the staggering statistics; we just need to get the information out there which is what we do,†she said.
Midlane added that another problem was that people were ignorant of how serious diabetes was and knowledge about the disease was little.
Schools in Tshwane have been approached to educate learners about diabetes. But Midlane said there was a lot of red tape preventing access to schools to share information with learners.
Pretoria News
