Improved data collection and publication is important in the fight against diabetes, the Ministry of Health has said.
Doctors have been asked to facilitate the process by documenting data collected in health facilities and sharing it with the national health data registry.
Zachary Muriuki, national programme officer, Diabetes Prevention and Control Program, Division of Non-Communicable Diseases at the Ministry of Health, made the announcement yesterday.
He spoke in Nairobi during the launch of Africa Diabetes Pacesetters Initiative by pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Muriuki said there is a need to equip the national health data registry with all findings from healthcare facilities.
“This will help us intervene effectively and respond to the needs on the ground. We cannot do this alone. We need to work with all the clinicians who are the main interface with our patients,” Muriuki said.
The Africa Diabetes Pacesetters Initiative aims at building capacity amongst physicians in diabetes care in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Diabetes is one of the NCDs on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa, with seven out of 10 adults having type 2 diabetes but are not aware.
Delayed diabetes diagnosis and treatment increases the risk of complications such as kidney damage, heart disease, blindness, neural damage leading to amputations and reduced life expectancy.
Late-stage complications are also the most costly to treat.
Once seen as a disease of affluent societies, diabetes has become a growing problem in developing countries, an increase driven largely by a rise in obesity.
The World Health Organisation says that most people with diabetes do not die of causes uniquely related to diabetes, but of associated complications like a heart attack.
The prevalence of diabetes in Kenya has more than doubled in the last three decades, accounting for 20 per cent of deaths.
Today, one in every 17 Kenyans has diabetes, and 12,890 people died from diabetes and high blood glucose in 2014.
A report jointly published by the WHO and Lancet on World Health Day in 2016 shows that the prevalence of diabetes in Kenya was six per cent in 2014, a 150 per cent rise from 2.4 per cent in 1980.
Muriuki emphasised that the ministry is committed to having strategic Public-Private partnerships with relevant stakeholders in the health sector to implement programs and initiatives that improve quality and comprehensive diabetes care.
“This initiative will make a difference in the areas of research, scientific writing, and publications on diabetes in the Sub-Saharan region that will inform policy, decision making and practice.”
