11 Nov 2019

Deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr Mareko Ramotshababa says government is striving to provide high quality diabetic care across the country. 

Speaking during commemoration of the World Diabetes Day on November 9 in Lobatse, he explained that 10 doctors from the Ministry of Health and Wellness were currently undergoing intensive one year training in Wales on diabetic care.

Upon completing training next year, the doctors will facilitate a roll out of high quality diabetic care around Botswana. “Currently the Ministry of Health and Wellness, working with other partners, we continue to put effort to increase the diabetic care services across the country,” he said.

He said research showed that more people suffered from non-communicable diseases in Botswana, and diabetes was one of the biggest contributors to the surge in prevalence of kidney disease.

Dr Ramotshababa therefore advised the society to test for diabetes and other non-communicable diseases so to get treatment before the disease became uncontrollable. 

Representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Ms Kentse Moakofhi called on African governments to be proactive in addressing the rapid rise in diabetes. She said prevalence of diabetes had more than doubled in Africa from 3.1 per cent in the 1980s to 7.1 per cent in 2014. 

“These figures show us that almost one in four people, when tested for blood sugar, they have raised blood sugar. This is very serious and as a country we have to be proactive in trying to address this problem,” she said.

She said the most unfortunate thing was that many people were not aware that they had diabetes. She therefore said raising of community awareness about the disease was very critical to the society.

She said while some risk factors like genetic and age of a person cannot be modified, government and members of the society could work together to address other factors such as physical inactivity, the use of tobacco products and unhealthy diets to prevent the increase in diabetes cases. 

She said WHO was working with countries across Africa to improve prevention and management of diabetes. 

Ms Moakofhi however said the burden of diabetes had kept on increasing and more is needed to be done to curb it.

“As WHO we call on all families to act on diabetes. We should maintain healthy diets by consuming less than six tea spoons of sugar each day, and this include sugar added to food and drinks. We are also being encouraged to be more physically active (by engaging in) at lease a brisk walk of 30 minutes every day.  It is also critical for us as individual to make sure that we monitor our body weights,” she said.

The president of Diabetic Association of Botswana, Dr Dipesalema Joel said they provide free public screening campaigns for diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, in an effort to prevent diabetes, and also hold awareness activities every year to educate the society about diabetes. 

Lobatse deputy town clerk Mr Mike Taukobong said the increase in diabetes had caused reduction of productivity among the workforce due to ill health. He therefore urged people to adopt healthy lifestyle.

Commemoration of the World Diabetes Day will be carried out in different places around the country on 14 November, under the theme; Family and Diabetes. Ends