ICPPA 2024: 'Technology has role to play in tackling diabetes'

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📍  DAR ES SALAAM

Think about this: In some countries, the number of people with amputations as a result of diabetes is more than those with amputations done after motor crashes.

This alone means that diabetes is a serious health matter.

According to Prof. Kofi Mensah Nyarko from WHO Africa, managing diabetes in especially Africa is hit by many challenges, including lack of awareness about the condition.

Speaking in Tanzania's port city of Dar es Salaam on Wednesday at the International Conference on PEN-Plus in Africa (ICPPA 2024), Nyarko said Africa's health system is "not responsive enough".

“It's interesting that people, adults in Africa, walk around for years without knowing their blood pressure and don't check their sugar. 

Prof. Kofi Mensah Nyarko from WHO Africa

Nyarko believes technology has a role to play in managing diabetes, especially in diagnosis and treatment.

“More than half of the people with diabetes are still not aware. Can countries have at least a system where everybody will just check their blood sugar at least for once by the end of this year?

“We can use technology. For blood pressure, for example, we have wearables. People have smartphones which are sensitive somehow to look at blood pressure."

As many as 24 million adults aged 20-70 in Africa are living with diabetes, with 416,000 deaths recorded in 2021, according to World Health Organization (WHO). 

The total number of people with diabetes in Africa is predicted to increase.

If left unmanaged, diabetes can lead to amputation of usually the lower extremities, including the legs, feet and toes.

Managing one's blood sugar levels is one of the ways to help prevent this happening.

Nyarko told delegates inside the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre that the WHO is aware that access to medicines, mainly insulin, has been an issue in Africa because of resources.

The UN health agency, he added, will continue to support Africa to ensure there is access to medicines.

The ICPPA 2024, aimed at addressing severe non-communicable diseases (NCDs), got under way on Tuesday and will run until Thursday.

In attendance are up to 600 delegates, who include WHO officials, UN representatives, ministers of health officials from different countries as well as health service stakeholders.

The conference is themed around prioritizing a person-centred approach to chronic and severe NCDs.

Diabetes of one of the many NCDs.

According to the International Diabetes Foundation, an estimated 716,000 adults in Uganda had diabetes in 2021.

About 89% of Ugandans with diabetes are neither on medication nor aware of their status and, therefore, present to the health system with difficult to treat complications.

Dr. Charles Oyoo Akiya, the commissioner of NCDs in Uganda's health ministry, said about 3.3% of Uganda's population are living with diabetes and that about half of that number are not aware they have the condition.

He cited a 2023 survey indicating that cases of diabetes almost doubled from 1.5% in 2014 to about 3% in 2023.  
 
Akiya urged Ugandans to always go for checkups for NCDs, including cancer, saying the government has set up free centres for exactly this.

"And this should be done routinely, because once detected early, you avoid the risk of progression to a severe form."

Dr. Charles Oyoo Akiya, the commissioner of NCDs in Uganda's health ministry

So what is the government doing to address NCDs?

"We are harnessing the new technologies and innovations to support the management of patients," said Akiya.

"Projects like the PEN-Plus have enabled us to know that this thing can be done at the lower levels by training the nurses and clinicians, and it cuts costs.

Diabetes is one of the leading causes of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, and non-traumatic lower limb amputation in Uganda.