The country will be home to over 100 million diabetics over the next 17 years currently. Already the country has the largest number of diabetes patients in the world and this life-style disease is the single largest killer in the country today.
According to a data released yesterday at a National Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) meet, the country witnessed a12 percent increase in the number of diabetes cases to 61million in 2012 as against 50.8 million in the previous year. In 2012, diabetes caused 9.83 lakh death in the country, the largest contributor to mortality, as per the official data. "We need multi-sectoral collaborative efforts to address the present and future challenges posed by NCD's in the country and every sector needs to share personal responsibility," Sayeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission, said at the summit.
A Confederation of Indian Industry’s 'National White Paper on Insights from Multi Stake holder Consultation-Management and Care of Diabetes in India' was also released atthe summit which focused on the theme of Strengthening Policies for Diabetes Care". The white paper encapsulates some of the best practices and suggestions from various experts and includes input received from five-state roundtable forums with multi-stakeholder groups organised at Rajasthan, Bengal,Kerala, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.
Keshav Desiraju, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, stressed the need to have an intermediate level of public healthcare workers beyond the ASHA workers. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that 9.2 per cent of adults in India have diabetes, making its prevalence second only to China. Senior health ministry officials, leading diabetes experts, scientists, businessleaders and representatives from international and national development agencies attended the inaugural programme.
