The event, held at RAK Hotel, was attended by its patron Shaikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, with the theme ‘Let us unite against diabetes in children and adolescents’.
Shaikh Saud also opened a medical exhibition, which featured new products that could be used in the treatment of diabetes as well as information on the effective management of the disease.
Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Health, who also attended the event, said the ministry had drawn up a national programme to tackle diabetes, which had emerged as one of the main health issues in the country.
“The high rate of prevalence of diabetes in the country calls for concerted and immediate action for better awareness and effective management of the disease,” said Al Qutami.
The minister had on November 14 announced the national strategy for tackling diabetes which included the launching of many initiatives like setting up of Diabetes Information Centres to spread awareness, compiling of a database of diabetic patients and launching of training programmes for the health professionals in the country. Dr Mariam Matar, Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health and Primary Health Care and head of the UAE National Diabetes Committee, said the Ministry of Health would conduct a nation-wide screening programme to ascertain the prevalence of diabetes in the country, which is estimated to be around 20 per cent.
“We are going to extend the ongoing screening programme to cover the entire country and hope that the programme would help us arrive at the accurate number of persons affected by the disease,” she added.
Dr Matar said the ministry had joined hands with a premier institute in Europe for conducting research, which would form the basis of a long-term strategy to combat the diabetes.
She noted that the problem of diabetes among children and adolescents was another focus area and efforts were on to highlight the importance of following a healthy lifestyle to avoid the disease.
The event was also attended by Tarek Shayya, Chief of Fundraising and Partnerships at Unicef, who said comparative studies undertaken by WHO had found that the approach of spreading public awareness and bringing about lifestyle changes was 30 per cent more effective than the one which focused merely on medical intervention to treat diabetes.
Children represent the future, and ensuring their healthy growth and development ought to be a prime concern of all societies. Newborns are particularly vulnerable and children are vulnerable to malnutrition and infectious diseases, many of which can be effectively prevented or treated with homeopathy.